Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsCollier’s Weekly, June 1, 1929
The Story Thus Far:
IN BLANDINGS CASTLE, England, live Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, whose chief interest is the Empress of Blandings, his prize pig; his sister, Lady Constance Keeble; his niece, Millicent; his brother, the Honorable Galahad Threepwood, now writing his Reminiscences; his secretary, Hugo Carmody, secretly engaged to Millicent; and his nephew, Ronald Fish, secretly engaged to Sue Brown, a chorus girl.
Ronnie steals the Empress and hides her in a disused cottage, planning to “find” her later, thus gaining his trustee’s gratitude and a share of his own capital. Hugo is sent to London to get a detective, P. Frobisher Pilbeam, to find the Empress.
Due to a misunderstanding in which Pilbeam is involved, Ronnie breaks his engagement with Sue, and Millicent hers with Hugo. Sue goes to Blandings to see Ronnie and explain, masquerading as Miss Schoonmaker, a wealthy American girl whom Ronnie’s mother had invited to Blandings. Galahad discovers Sue’s real identity, but promises secrecy. Ronnie and Millicent become engaged to spite Sue and Hugo.
Galahad puts in his Reminiscences a story about Sir Gregory Parsloe, who offers Pilbeam £500 to steal the manuscript. Lady Constance has already invited the Efficient Baxter to Blandings for the same purpose. Baxter is nearly caught in the attempt, and is seen jumping from the library window by Sue and Lord Emsworth, who calls him mad. He writes to Sue in self-defense.
IX
THE firm and dignified note in which Rupert Baxter had expressed his considered opinion of the Earl of Emsworth had been written in the morning-room immediately upon the ex-secretary’s return to the house and delivered into Beach’s charge with hands still stained with garden mold. Only when this urgent task had been performed did he start to go upstairs in quest of the wash and brush-up which he so greatly needed.
He was mounting the stairs to his bedroom and had reached the first floor when a door opened and his progress was arrested by what in a lesser woman would have been a yelp. Proceeding, as it did, from the lips of Lady Constance Keeble, we must call it an exclamation of surprise.
“Mr. Baxter!”
She was standing in the doorway of her boudoir, and she eyed his dishevelled form with such open-mouthed astonishment that for an instant the ex-secretary came near to including her with the head of the family in the impromptu commination service which was taking shape in his mind. He was in no mood for wide-eyed looks of wonder.
“May I come in?” he said curtly. He could explain all, but he did not wish to do so on the first-floor landing of a house where almost anybody might be listening with flapping ears.
“But, Mr. Baxter!” said Lady Constance.
He paused for a moment to grit his teeth, then closed the door.
“What have you been doing, Mr. Baxter?”
“Jumping out of window.”
“Jumping out of win-dow?”
He gave a brief synopsis of the events which had led up to his spirited act. Lady Constance drew in her breath with a remorseful hiss.
“Oh, dear!” she said. “How foolish of me. I should have told you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Even though she was in the safe retirement of her boudoir, Lady Constance looked cautiously over her shoulder. In the stirring and complicated state into which life had got itself at Blandings Castle, practically everybody in the place, except Lord Emsworth, had fallen into the habit nowadays of looking cautiously over his or her shoulder before he or she spoke.
“Sir Gregory Parsloe said in his note,” she explained, “that this man Pilbeam who is coming here this evening is acting for him.”
“Acting for him?”
“Yes. Apparently Sir Gregory went to see him yesterday and has promised him a large sum of money if he will obtain possession of my brother Galahad’s manuscript. That is why he has invited us to dinner tonight, to get Galahad out of the house. So there was no need for you to have troubled.”
There was a silence.
“So there was no need,” repeated the Efficient Baxter slowly, wiping from his eye the remains of a fragment of mold which had been causing him some inconvenience, “for me to have troubled.”
“I am so sorry, Mr. Baxter.”
“Pray do not mention it, Lady Constance.”
His eye, now that the mold was out of it, was able to work again with its customary keenness. His spectacles, as he surveyed the remorseful woman before him, had a cold, steely look.
“I see,” he said. “Well, it might perhaps have spared me some little inconvenience had you informed me of this earlier, Lady Constance. I have bruised my left shin somewhat severely and, as you see, made myself rather dirty.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Furthermore, I gathered from the remark he let fall that the impression my actions have made upon Lord Emsworth is that I am insane.”
“Oh, dear!”
“He even specified the precise degree of insanity. ‘As mad as a coot,’ were his words.”
HE SOFTENED a little. He reminded himself that this woman before him, who was so nearly doing what is described as wringing the hands, had always been his friend, had always wished him well, had never slackened her efforts to restore him to the secretarial duties which he had once enjoyed.
“Well, it cannot be helped,” he said. “The thing now is to think of some way of recovering the lost ground.”
“You mean, if you could find the Empress?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, Mr. Baxter, if you only could!”
“I can.”
Lady Constance stared at his dark, purposeful, efficient face in dumb admiration. To another man who had spoken those words she would have replied. “How?” or even “How on earth?” But, as they proceeded from Rupert Baxter, she merely waited silently for enlightenment.
“Have you given this matter any consideration, Lady Constance?”
“Yes.”
“To what conclusions have you come?”
Lady Constance felt dull and foolish. She felt like Doctor Watson—almost like a Scotland Yard bungler.
“I don’t think I have come to any,” she said, avoiding the spectacles guiltily. “Of course,” she added, “I think it is absurd to suppose that Sir Gregory . . .”
Baxter waved aside the notion. It was not even worth a “Tchah!”
“In any matter of this kind,” he said, “the first thing to do is to seek a motive. Who is there in Blandings Castle who could have had a motive for stealing Lord Emsworth’s pig?”
Lady Constance would have given a year’s income to have been able to make some reasonably intelligent reply, but all she could do was look and listen. Baxter was not annoyed. He would not have had it otherwise. He preferred his audience dumb and expectant.
“Carmody.”
“Mr. Carmody!”
“Precisely. He is Lord Emsworth’s secretary, and a most inefficient secretary, a secretary who stands hourly in danger of losing his position. He sees me arrive at the Castle, a man who formerly held the post he holds. He is alarmed. He suspects. He searches wildly about in his mind for means of consolidating himself in Lord Emsworth’s regard. Then he has an idea, the sort of wild, motion-picture-bred idea which would come to a man of his stamp. He thinks to himself that if he removes the pig and conceals it somewhere and then pretends to have found it and restores it to its owner, Lord Emsworth’s gratitude will be so intense that all danger of his dismissal will be at an end.”
HE REMOVED his spectacles and wiped them. Lady Constance uttered a low cry. In anybody else it would have been a squeak. Baxter replaced his spectacles.
“I have no doubt the pig is somewhere in the grounds at this moment,” he said.
“But, Mr. Baxter . . .”
The ex-secretary raised a compelling hand.
“But he would not have undertaken a thing like this single-handed. A secretary’s time is not his own, and it would be necessary to feed the pig at regular intervals. He would require an accomplice. And I think I know who that accomplice is. Beach!”
This time not even the chronicler’s desire to place Lady Constance’s utterances in the best and most attractive light can hide the truth. She bleated:
“Be-ee-ee-ee-ach!”
The spectacles raked her keenly.
“Have you observed Beach closely of late?”
She shook her head. She was not a woman who observed butlers closely.
“He has something on his mind. He is nervous. Guilty. Conscience-stricken. He jumps when you speak to him.”
“Does he?”
“Jumps,” repeated the Efficient Baxter. “Just now I gave him a—I happened to address him, and he sprang in the air.” He paused. “I have half a mind to go and question him.”
“Oh, Mr. Baxter! Would that be wise?”
Rupert Baxter’s intention of interrogating the butler had been merely a nebulous one, a sort of idle dream, but these words crystallized it into a resolve. He was not going to have people asking him if things would be wise.
“A few searching questions should force him to reveal the truth.”
“But he’ll give notice!”
THIS interview had been dotted with occasions on which Baxter might reasonably have said “Tchah!” but, as we have seen, until this moment he had refrained. He now said it.
“Tchah!” said the Efficient Baxter. “There are plenty of other butlers.”
And with this undeniable truth he stalked from the room. The wash and brush-up were still as necessary as they had been ten minutes before, but he was too intent on the chase to think about washes and brushes-up. He hurried down the stairs. He crossed the hall. He passed through the green-baize door that led to the quarters of the Blandings Castle staff. And he was making his way along the dim passage to the pantry where at this hour Beach might be supposed to be, when its door opened abruptly and a vast form emerged.
It was the butler. And from the fact that he was wearing a bowler hat it was plain that he was seeking the great outdoors.
Baxter stopped in mid-stride and remained on one leg, watching. Then, as his quarry disappeared in the direction of the back-entrance he followed quickly.
Out in the open it was almost as dark as it had been in the passage. That gray, threatening sky had turned black by now. It was a swollen mass of inky clouds, heavy with the thunder, lightning and rain which so often comes in the course of an English summer to remind the island race that they are hardy Nordics and must not be allowed to get their fibre all sapped by eternal sunshine like the less favored dwellers in more southerly climes. It bayed at Baxter like a bloodhound.
But it took more than dirty weather to quell the Efficient Baxter when duty called. Like the character in Tennyson’s poem who followed the gleam, he followed the butler. There was but one point about Beach which even remotely resembled a gleam, but it happened to be the only one which at this moment really mattered. He was easy to follow.
The shrubbery swallowed the butler. A few seconds later, it had swallowed the Efficient Baxter.
THERE are those who maintain—and make a nice income by doing so in the evening papers—that in these degenerated days the old, hardy spirit of the Briton has died out. They represent themselves as seeking vainly for evidence of the survival of those qualities of toughness and endurance which once made Englishmen what they were. To such, the spectacle of Rupert Baxter braving the elements could not have failed to bring cheer and consolation. They would have been further stimulated by the conduct of Hugo Carmody.
It had not escaped Hugo’s notice, as he left Sue on the terrace and started out in the wake of Millicent, that the weather was hotting up for a storm. He saw the clouds. He heard the fast-approaching thunder. For neither did he give a hoot. Let it rain, was Hugo’s verdict. Let it jolly well rain as much as it dashed well wanted to. As if encouraged, the sky sent down a fat, wet drop which insinuated itself just between his neck and collar.
He hardly noticed it. The information confided to him by his friend Ronald Fish had numbed his senses so thoroughly that water down the back of the neck was merely an incident. He was feeling as he had not felt since the evening some years ago when, boxing for his University in the light-weight division, he had incautiously placed the point of his jaw in the exact spot at the moment occupied by his opponent’s right fist. When you have done this or—equally—when you have just been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to another, you begin to understand how Anarchists must feel when the bomb goes off too soon.
In all the black days through which he had been living recently, Hugo had never really lost hope. It had been dim sometimes, but it had always been there. It was his opinion that he knew women, just as it was Sue’s idea that she knew men. Like Sue, he had placed his trust in the thought that true love conquers all obstacles; that coldness melts; that sundered hearts may at long last be brought together again by a little judicious pleading and reasoning.
But this was final. This was the end. This put the tin hat on it. She was engaged to Ronnie. Soon she would be married to Ronnie. Like a gadfly the hideous thought sent Hugo Carmody reeling on through the gloom.
It was so dark now that he could scarcely see before him. And, looking about him, he discovered that the reason for this was that he had made his way into a wood of sorts. There were trees against which he bumped, and logs over which he tripped. And ahead of him, in a small clearing, there was a dilapidated-looking cottage. He noticed this because it seemed the sort of place where a man, now that a warm, gusty wind had sprung up, might take shelter and light a cigarette. The need for tobacco had become imperative.
HE WAS surprised to find that it was raining, and had apparently, from the state of his clothes, been raining for quite some time. It was also thundering. The storm had broken, and the boom of it seemed to be all round him. A flash of lightning reminded him that he was in just the kind of place, among all these trees, where blokes got struck. At dinner-time they are missed, and later on search-parties come out with lanterns. Somebody stumbles over something soft, and the rays of the lantern fall on a charred and blackened form. Here, quickly, we have found him! Where? Over here. Is that Hugo Carmody? Well, well! Pick him up, boys, and bring him along. He was a good chap once. Moody, though, of late. Some trouble about a girl, wasn’t it? She will be sorry when she hears of this. Drove him to it, you might almost say. Steady with that stretcher. Now, when I say “To me.” Right!
There was something about this picture which quite cheered Hugo up. Ajax defied the lightning. Hugo Carmody rather encouraged it than otherwise. He looked approvingly at a more than usually vivid flash that seemed to dart among the tree-tops like a snake. All the same, he was forced to reflect, he was getting dashed wet. No sense, when you came right down to it, in getting dashed wet. After all, a man could be struck by lightning just as well in that cottage sort of place over there. Ho! for the cottage, felt Hugo, and headed for it at a gallop.
He had just reached the door, when it was flung open. There was a noise rather like that made by a rising pheasant, and the next moment something white had flung itself into his arms and was weeping emotionally on his chest.
“Hugo! Hugo, darling!”
Reason told Hugo it could scarcely be Millicent who was clinging to him like this and speaking to him like this. And yet Millicent it most certainly appeared to be. She continued to speak in the same friendly, even chatty strain.
“Hugo! Save me!”
“Right ho!”
“I wur-wur-went in thur-thur-there for shush-shush-shelter from the rain and it’s all pitch dark.”
Hugo squeezed her fondly and with the sort of relief that comes to men who find themselves squeezing where they had not thought to squeeze. No need for that snappy bit of talking now. No need for arguments and explanations, for pleadings and entreaties. No need for anything but good biceps.
If this melting mood was due to the fact that Millicent, while in the cottage, had seen a ghost, Hugo wanted to meet that ghost and shake its hand. Every man likes to be in a position to say “There, there, little woman!” to the girl of his heart, particularly if for the last few days she has been treating him like a more than ordinarily unpleasant worm, and Hugo Carmody felt he was in that position now.
“There, there!” he said, not quite feeling up to risking the “little woman.” “It’s all right.”
“But it tut-tut-tut . . .”
“It what?” said Hugo puzzled.
“It tut-tut-tut—isn’t. There’s a man in there!”
“A man?”
“Yes. I didn’t know there was anyone there and it was pitch dark and I heard something move and I said ‘Who’s that?’ and then he suddenly spoke to me in German.”
“In German?”
“Yes.”
Hugo released her gently. His face was determined.
“I’m going in to have a look.”
“Hugo! Stop! You’ll be killed.”
She stood there, rigid. The rain lashed about her, but she did not heed it. The lightning gleamed. She paid it no attention. For the minute that lasts an hour she waited, straining her ears for sounds of the death-struggle.
“I say, Millicent.”
“Hugo! Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m all right. I say, Millicent, do you know what?”
“No, what?”
A chuckle came to her through the darkness.
“It’s the pig.”
“It’s what?”
“The pig.”
“Who’s a pig?”
“This is. Your friend in here. It’s Empress of Blandings, as large as life. Come and have a look.”
MILLICENT had a look. She came to the door of the cottage and peered in. Yes, just as he had said, there was the Empress. In the feeble light of the match which Hugo was holding, the noble animal’s attractive face was peering up at her, questioningly, as if wondering if she might be the bearer of the evening snack which would be so welcome. The picture was one which would have set Lord Emsworth screaming with joy. Millicent merely gaped.
“How on earth did she get here?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” said Hugo. “One always knew she must be cached somewhere, of course. What is this place, anyway?”
“It used to be a gamekeeper’s cottage, I believe.”
“Well, there seems to be a room up above,” said Hugo, striking another match. “I’m going to go up there and wait. It’s quite likely that somebody will be along soon to feed the animal, and I’m going to see who it is.”
“Yes, that’s what we’ll do. How clever of you!”
“Not you. You get back home.”
“I won’t.”
There was a pause. A strong man would, no doubt, have asserted himself. But Hugo, though feeling better than he had done for days, was not feeling quite so strong as all that.
“Just as you like.” He shut the door. “Well, come on. We’d better be making a move. The fellow may be here at any moment.”
They climbed the crazy stairs and lowered themselves cautiously to a floor which smelled of mice and mildew. Below, all was in darkness, but there were holes through which it would be possible to look when the time should come for looking. Millicent could feel one near her face.
“You don’t think this floor will give way?” she asked rather nervously.
“I shouldn’t think so. Why?”
“Well, I don’t want to break my neck.”
“You don’t, don’t you? Well, I would jolly well like to break mine,” said Hugo, speaking tensely in the darkness. It had just occurred to him that now would be a good time for a heart-to-heart talk. “If you suppose I’m keen on going on living with you and Ronnie doing the Wedding Glide all over the place, you’re dashed well mistaken. I take it you’re aware that you’ve broken my bally heart, what?”
“Oh, Hugo!” said Millicent.
Silence fell. Below, the Empress rustled. Aloft, something scuttered.
“Oh!” cried Millicent. “Was that a rat?”
“I hope so.”
“What!”
“Rats gnaw you,” explained Hugo. “They cluster round and chew you to the bone and put an end to your misery.”
There was silence again. Then Millicent spoke in a small voice.
“You’re being beastly,” she said.
Remorse poured over Hugo in a flood.
“I’m frightfully sorry. Yes, I know I am, dash it. But, look here, you know . . . I mean, all this getting engaged to Ronnie. A bit thick, what? You don’t expect me to give three hearty cheers, do you? Wouldn’t want me to break into a few care-free dance-steps?”
“I can’t believe it’s really happened.”
“Well, how did it happen?”
“It sort of happened all of a sudden. I was feeling miserable and very angry with you and . . . and all that. And Ronnie took me for a stroll and we went down by the lake and started throwing little bits of stick at the swans, and suddenly Ronnie sort of grunted and said ‘I say!’ and I said ‘Hullo?’ and he said ‘Will you marry me?’ and I said ‘All right,’ and he said ‘I ought to warn you, I despise all women,’ and I said ‘And I loathe all men’ and he said ‘Right-o, I think we shall be very happy.’ ”
“I see.”
“I only did it to score off you.”
“You succeeded.”
A trace of spirit crept into Millicent’s voice.
“You never really loved me,” she said. “You know jolly well you didn’t.”
“Is that so?”
“Well, what did you want to go sneaking off to London for then, and stuffing that beastly girl of yours with food?”
“She isn’t my girl. And she isn’t beastly.”
“She is.”
“Well, you seem to get on with her all right. I saw you chatting on the terrace together as cosily as dammit.”
“What!”
“Miss Schoonmaker.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s Miss Schoonmaker got to do with it?”
“Miss Schoonmaker isn’t Miss Schoonmaker. She’s Sue Brown.”
FOR a moment it seemed to Millicent that the crack in her companion’s heart had spread to his head. Futile though the action was, she stared into the darkness from which his voice had proceeded. Then, suddenly, his words took on a meaning. She gasped.
“She’s followed you down here!”
“She hasn’t followed me down here. She’s followed Ronnie down here. Can’t you get it into your nut,” said Hugo with justifiable exasperation, “that you’ve been making floaters and bloomers and getting everything mixed up all along? Sue Brown has never cared a curse for me, and I’ve never thought anything about her, except that she’s a jolly girl and nice to dance with. That’s absolutely and positively the only reason I went out with her.
“I hadn’t had a dance for six weeks and my feet had begun to itch so that I couldn’t sleep at night. So I went to London and took her out and Ronnie found her talking to that pestilence Pilbeam and thought he had taken her out and she had told him she didn’t even know the man, which was quite true, but Ronnie cut up rough and said he was through with her and came down here and she wanted to get a word with him, so she came down here, pretending to be Miss Schoonmaker, and the moment she gets here she finds Ronnie is engaged to you. A nice surprise for the poor girl!”
MILLICENT’S head had begun to swim long before the conclusion of this recital.
“But what is Pilbeam doing down here?”
“Pilbeam?”
“He was on the terrace talking to her.”
A low snarl came through the darkness.
“Pilbeam here? Ah! So he came, after all, did he? He’s the fellow Lord Emsworth sent me to, about the Empress. He runs the Argus Inquiry Agency. It was Pilbeam’s minions that dogged my steps that night, at your request. So he’s here, is he? Well, let him enjoy himself while he can. Let him sniff the country air while the sniffing is good. A bitter reckoning awaits that bloke.”
From the disorder of Millicent’s mind another point emerged, insistently demanding explanation.
“You said she wasn’t pretty!”
“Who?”
“Sue Brown.”
“Nor is she.”
“You don’t call her pretty? She’s fascinating.”
“Not to me,” said Hugo doggedly. “There’s only one girl in the world that I call pretty, and she’s going to marry Ronnie.” He paused. “If you haven’t realized by this time that I love you and always shall love you and have never loved anybody else and never shall love anybody else, you’re a fathead. If you brought me Sue Brown or any other girl in the world on a plate with watercress round her, I wouldn’t so much as touch her hand.”
Another rat—unless it was an exceptionally large mouse—had begun to make its presence felt in the darkness. It seemed to be enjoying an early dinner off a piece of wood. Millicent did not even notice it. She had reached out, and her hand had touched Hugo’s arm. Her fingers closed on it desperately.
“Oh, Hugo!” she said.
The arm became animated. It clutched her, drew her along the mouse-and-mildew scented floor. And time stood still.
Hugo was the first to break the silence.
“And to think that not so long ago I was wishing that a flash of lightning would strike me amidships!” he said.
The aroma of mouse and mildew had passed away. Violets seemed to be spreading their fragrance through the cottage. Violets and roses. The rat, a noisy feeder, had changed into an orchestra of harps, dulcimers and sackbuts that played soft music.
And then, jarring upon these sweet strains, there came the sound of the cottage door opening. And a moment later light shone through the holes in the floor.
Millicent gave Hugo’s arm a warning pinch. They looked down. On the floor below stood a lantern, and beside it a man of massive build who, from the gulping noises that floated upward, appeared to be giving the Empress those calories and proteins which a pig of her dimensions requires so often and in such large quantities.
This Good Samaritan had been stooping. Now he straightened himself and looked about him with an apprehensive eye. He raised the lantern, and its light fell upon his face.
And, as she saw that face, Millicent, forgetting prudence, uttered in a high, startled voice a single word:
“Beach!”
Down below, the butler stood congealed. It seemed to him that the Voice of Conscience had spoken.
Conscience, besides having a musical voice, appeared also to be equipped with feet. Beach could hear them clattering down the stairs, and the volume of noise was so great that it seemed as if Conscience must be a centipede. But he did not stir. It would have required at that moment a derrick to move him, and there was no derrick in the gamekeeper’s cottage in the West Wood.
He was still standing like a statue when Hugo and Millicent arrived. Only when the identity of the newcomers impressed itself on his numbed senses did his limbs begin to twitch and show some signs of relaxing. For he looked on Hugo as a friend. Hugo, he felt, was one of the few people in his world who, finding him in his present questionable position, might be expected to take the broad and sympathetic view.
He nerved himself to speak.
“Good evening, sir. Good evening, miss.”
“What’s all this?” said Hugo.
Years ago, in his hot and reckless youth, Beach had once heard that question from the lips of a policeman. It had disconcerted him then. It disconcerted him now.
“Well, sir,” he replied.
Millicent was staring at the Empress, who, after one courteous look of inquiry at the intruders, had given a brief grunt of welcome and returned to the agenda.
“You stole her, Beach? You!”
The butler quivered. He had known this girl since her long-hair-and-rompers days. She had sported in his pantry. He had cut elephants out of paper for her and taught her tricks with bits of string. The shocked note in her voice seared him like vitriol. To her, he felt, niece to the Earl of Emsworth and trained by his lordship from infancy in the best traditions of pig-worship, the theft of the Empress must seem the vilest of crimes. He burned to reëstablish himself in her eyes.
THERE comes in the life of every conspirator a moment when loyalty to his accomplices wavers before the urge to make things right for himself. We can advance no more impressive proof of the nobility of the butler’s soul than that he did not obey this impulse. Millicent’s accusing eyes were piercing him, but he remained true to his trust. Mr. Ronald had sworn him to secrecy; and even to square himself he could not betray him.
And, as if by way of a direct reward from Providence for this sterling conduct, inspiration descended upon Beach.
“Yes, miss,” he replied.
“Oh, Beach!”
“Yes, miss. It was I who stole the animal. I did it for your sake, miss.”
Hugo eyed him sternly.
“Beach,” he said, “this is pure applesauce.”
“Sir?”
“Applesauce, I repeat. Why endeavor to swing the lead, Beach? What do you mean, you stole the pig for her sake?”
“Yes,” said Millicent, “why for my sake?”
The butler was calm now. He had constructed his story, and he was going to stick to it.
“In order to remove the obstacles in your path, miss.”
“Obstacles?”
“Owing to the fact that you and Mr. Carmody have frequently intrusted me with your—may I say surreptitious—correspondence, I have long been cognizant of your sentiments toward one another, miss. I am aware that it is your desire to contract a union with Mr. Carmody, and I knew that there would be objections raised on the part of certain members of the family.”
“So far,” said Hugo critically, “this sounds to me like drivel of the purest water. But go on.”
“Thank you, sir. And then it occurred to me that, were his lordship’s pig to disappear, his lordship would, on recovering the animal, be extremely grateful to whoever restored it. It was my intention to apprise you of the animal’s whereabouts, and suggest that you should inform his lordship that you had discovered it. In his gratitude, I fancied, his lordship would consent to the union.”
THERE could never be complete silence in any spot where the Empress of Blandings was partaking of food; but something as near silence as was possible followed this speech. In the rays of the lantern Hugo’s eyes met Millicent’s. In hers, as in his, there was a look of stunned awe.
“Beach,” cried Millicent, “you’re an angel!”
“Thank you, miss.”
“A topper!” agreed Hugo.
“Thank you, sir.”
“However did you get such a corking idea?”
“It came to me, miss.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Beach,” said Hugo earnestly. “When you hand in your dinner-pail in due course of time—and may the moment be long distant!—you’ve got to leave your brain to the nation. You’ve simply got to. Have it pickled and put in the British Museum, because it’s the outstanding brain of the century. I never heard of anything so brilliant in my puff. Of course the old boy will be all over us.”
“He’ll do anything for us,” said Millicent.
“This is not merely a scheme. It is more. It is an egg. Pray silence for your chairman. I want to think.”
Outside, the storm had passed. Birds were singing. Far away, the thunder still rumbled. It might have been the sound of Hugo’s thoughts, leaping and jostling one another.
“I’ve worked it all out,” said Hugo at length. “Some people might say: Rush to the old boy now and tell him we’ve found his pig. I say, no. In my opinion we ought to hold this pig for a rising market. The longer we wait, the more grateful he will be. Give him another forty-eight hours, I suggest, and he will have reached the stage where he will deny us nothing.”
“Then we’ll leave the Empress here?”
“No,” said Hugo decidedly. “This place doesn’t strike me as safe. If we found her here, anybody might. We require a new safe-deposit, and I know the very one. It’s . . .”
Beach came out of the silence. His manner betrayed agitation.
“If it is all the same to you, sir, I would much prefer not to hear it.”
“Eh?”
“It would be a great relief to me, sir, to be able to expunge the entire matter from my mind. I have been under a considerable mental strain of late, sir, and I really don’t think I could bear any more of it. Besides, supposing I were questioned, sir. It may be my imagination, but I have rather fancied from the way he has looked at me occasionally that Mr. Baxter harbors suspicions.”
“Baxter always harbors suspicions about something,” said Millicent.
“All right, Beach,” said Hugo. “After what you have done for us, your lightest wish is law. You can be out of this, if you want to. Though I was going to suggest that, if you cared to go on feeding the animal. . . .”
“No, sir . . . really . . . if you please. . . .”
“Right ho, then. Come along, Millicent. We must be shifting.”
“Are you going to take her away now?”
“This very moment. I pass this handkerchief through the handy ring which you observe in the nose and . . . Ho! Allez-oop! Good-by, Beach. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done, I think.”
“Good-by, Beach,” said Millicent. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”
“I am glad to have given satisfaction, miss. I wish you every success and happiness, sir.”
LEFT alone, the butler drew in his breath till he swelled like a balloon, then poured it out again in a long, sighing puff. He picked up the lantern and left the cottage. His walk was the walk of a butler from whose shoulders a great weight has rolled.
“There’s a light in thy bow-er,” sang Beach.
“A light in thy bower. . . .”
He felt more like a gay young second footman than a butler of years’ standing. He listened to the birds with an uplifted heart. Upon the rabbits that sported about his path he bestowed a series of indulgent smiles. The shadow that had darkened his life had passed away. His conscience was at rest.
So completely was this so that when, on reaching the house, he was informed by Footman James that Lord Emsworth had been inquiring for him and desired his immediate presence in the library, he did not even tremble. A brief hour ago, and what menace this announcement would have seemed to him to hold! But now it left him calm. It was with some little difficulty that, as he mounted the stairs, he kept himself from resuming his song.
“Er—Beach.”
“Your lordship?”
The butler now became aware that his employer was not alone. Dripping in an unpleasant manner on the carpet, for he seemed somehow to have got himself extremely wet, stood the Efficient Baxter. Beach regarded him with a placid eye. What was Baxter to him or he to Baxter now?
“Your lordship?” he said again, for Lord Emsworth appeared to be experiencing some difficulty in continuing the conversation.
“Eh? What? What? Oh, yes.”
The ninth Earl braced himself with a visible effort.
“Er—Beach.”
“Your lordship?”
“I—er—I sent for you, Beach . . .”
“Yes, your lordship?”
At this moment Lord Emsworth’s eye fell on a volume on the desk dealing with diseases of pigs. He seemed to draw strength from it.
“Beach,” he said, in quite a crisp, masterful voice, “I sent for you because Mr. Baxter has made a remarkable charge against you. Most extraordinary.”
“I should be glad to be acquainted with the gravamen of the accusation, your lordship.”
“The what?” asked Lord Emsworth, starting.
“If your lordship would be kind enough to inform me of the substance of Mr. Baxter’s charge?”
“Oh, the substance? Yes. You mean the substance? Precisely. Quite so. The substance. Yes, to be sure. Quite so. Yes. Exactly. No doubt.”
“What is it that Mr. Baxter says, your lordship?”
“Eh? Oh, tell him, Baxter. Yes, tell him, dash it.”
The Efficient Baxter moved a step closer and began to drip on another part of the carpet. His spectacles gleamed determinedly. Here was no stammering, embarrassed Peer of the Realm, but a man who knew his own mind and could speak it.
“I followed you up to the gamekeeper’s cottage in the West Wood just now, Beach.”
“Sir?”
“You heard what I said.”
“Undoubtedly, sir. But I fancied I must be mistaken. I have not been to the spot you mention, sir.”
“I saw you with my own eyes.”
“I can only repeat my asseveration, sir,” said the butler with a saintly meekness.
Lord Emsworth, who had taken another look at Ailments in Pigs, became brisk again.
“He says he peeped through the window, dash it.”
Beach raised a respectful eyebrow. It was as if he had said that it was not his place to comment on the pastimes of the Castle’s guests, however childish.
“And you were in there,” he says, “feeding the Empress.”
“Your lordship?”
“And you were in there. . . . Dash it, you heard.”
“I beg your pardon, your lordship, but I really fail to comprehend.”
“Well, if you want it in a nutshell: Mr. Baxter says it was you who stole my pig.”
THERE were few things in the world that the butler considered worth raising both eyebrows at. This was one of the few. He stood for a moment, exhibiting them to Lord Emsworth: then turned to Baxter, so that he could see them, too. This done, he lowered them and permitted about three-eighths of a smile to play for a moment about his lips.
“Might I speak frankly, your lordship?”
“Dash it, man, we want you to speak frankly. That’s the whole idea. That’s why I sent for you. We want a full confession and the name of your accomplice and all that sort of thing.”
“I hesitate only because what I should like to say may possibly give offense to Mr. Baxter, your lordship, which would be the last thing I should desire.”
The prospect of offending the Efficient Baxter which caused such concern to Beach appeared to disturb his lordship not at all.
“Get on. Say what you like.”
“Well, then, your lordship, I think it possible that Mr. Baxter, if he will pardon my saying so, may have been suffering from an hallucination.”
“Tchah!” said the Efficient Baxter.
“You mean he’s potty?” said Lord Emsworth, struck with the idea.
“Really, Lord Emsworth!”
“Oh, I’m not saying you are, my dear fellow. Only . . .”
“It is quite obvious to me,” said Baxter stiffly, “that this man is lying. Wait!” he continued, raising a hand. “Are you prepared to come with his lordship and me to the cottage now, at this very moment, and let his lordship see for himself?”
“No, sir.”
“Ha!”
“I should first,” said Beach, “wish to go downstairs and get my hat.”
“Quite right,” agreed Lord Emsworth cordially. “Very sensible. Might catch a nasty cold in the head. Certainly get your hat, Beach, and meet us at the front door.”
“Very good, your lordship.”
A bystander, observing the little party that was gathered some five minutes later on the gravel outside the great door of Blandings Castle, would have noticed about it a touch of chill, a certain restraint. None of its three members seemed really in the mood for a ramble through the woods. Beach, though courtly, was not cordial. The face under his bowler hat was the face of a good man misjudged. Baxter was eyeing the sullen sky as though he suspected it of something. As for Lord Emsworth, he had just become conscious that he was about to accompany through dark and deserted ways one who, though on this afternoon’s evidence the trend of his tastes seemed to be toward suicide, might quite possibly become homicidal.
“One moment,” said Lord Emsworth.
He scuttled into the house again, and came out looking happier. He was carrying a stout walking-stick with an ivory knob on it.
Annotations to this novel in book form are on this site.
Printer’s errors corrected above:
p. 16a: Magazine had “I beg your pardon!”; corrected to question mark as in other sources.
p. 54b: Magazine omitted a new-paragraph indent before “Hugo eyed him sternly.”
p. 54c: Magazine had «it’s the outstanding brain of the country»; corrected to ‹century› as in all other sources.
p. 54c: Magazine had «“He’ll do anything for us,” said Milicent.»; corrected to ‹Millicent›.
p. 56b: Magazine omitted closing quotation mark in “I saw you with my own eyes.”
p. 56b: Magazine had «the pastimes of the Castle’s guest, however childish.»; corrected to ‹guests› as in other versions.
Not corrected:
p. 54c: Magazine had “where the Empress of Blandings was partaking of food”; book versions omit ‘the’. [In general she is referred to as “Empress of Blandings” or “the Empress” for short; “the Empress of Blandings” occurs only about half a dozen times in the books.]