Collier’s Weekly, June 15, 1929

 

 

XI

THE Efficient Baxter had retired to the smoking-room shortly before half-past seven. He desired silence and solitude, and in this cozy haven he got both. For a few minutes nothing broke the stillness but the slow ticking of a clock. Then came a new sound: the dressing-for-dinner gong.

Baxter did not stir. The summons left him unmoved. He had heard it, of course. Beach was a man who swung a pretty gong-stick. He had that quick fore-arm flick and wristy follow-through which stamp the master. If you were anywhere within a quarter of a mile or so, you could not help hearing him. But the sound had no appeal for Baxter. He did not propose to go in to dinner. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

They were not the sort of thoughts with which most men would have wished to be left alone, being both dark and bitter. That expedition to the gamekeeper’s cottage in the west wood had not proved a pleasure-trip for Rupert Baxter. Reviewing it in his mind, he burned with baffled rage.

And yet everybody had been very nice to him—very nice and tactful. True, at the moment of the discovery that the cottage contained no pig and appeared to have been pigless from its foundation, there had been perhaps just the slightest suspicion of constraint. Lord Emsworth had grasped his ivory-knobbed stick a little more tightly and had edged behind Beach in a rather noticeable way, his manner saying more plainly than was agreeable, “If he springs, be ready!” And there had come into the butler’s face a look, hard to bear, which was a blend of censure and pity. But after that both of them had been charming.

 

LORD EMSWORTH had talked soothingly about light and shade effects. He had said—and Beach had agreed with him—that in the darkness anybody might have been deceived into supposing that he had seen a butler feeding a pig in the game-keeper’s cottage. It was probably, said Lord Emsworth—and Beach thought so, too—a bit of wood sticking out of the wall or something. He went on to tell a longish story of how he himself, when a boy, had fancied he had seen a cat with flaming eyes. He had concluded by advising Baxter—and Beach said the suggestion was a good one—to hurry home and have a nice cup of hot tea and go to bed.

His attitude, in short, could not have been pleasanter or more considerate. Yet Baxter, as he sat in the smoking-room, burned, as stated, with baffled rage.

The door handle turned. Beach stood on the threshold.

“If you have changed your mind, sir, about taking dinner, the meal is quite ready.”

He spoke as friend to friend. There was nothing in his manner to suggest that the man he addressed had ever accused him of stealing pigs. As far as Beach was concerned, all was forgotten and forgiven.

But the milk of human kindness, of which the butler was so full, had not yet been delivered on Baxter’s doorstep. The hostility in his eye, as he fixed it on his visitor, was so marked that a lesser man than Beach might have been disconcerted.

“I don’t want any dinner.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Bring me that whisky-and-soda quick.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

THE door closed as softly as it had opened, but not before a pang like a red-hot needle had pierced the ex-secretary’s bosom. It was caused by the fact that he had distinctly heard the butler, as he withdrew, utter a pitying sigh.

It was the sort of sigh which a kind-hearted man would have given on peeping into a padded cell in which some old friend was confined, and Baxter resented it with all the force of an imperious nature. He had not ceased to wonder what, if anything, could be done about it when the refreshments arrived, carried by James the footman. James placed them gently on the table, shot a swift glance of respectful commiseration at the patient, and went out.

The sigh had cut Baxter like a knife. The look stabbed him like a dagger. For a moment he thought of calling the man back and asking him what the devil he meant by staring at him like that, but wiser counsels prevailed. He contented himself with draining a glass of whisky-and-soda and swallowing two sandwiches.

This done, he felt a little—not much, but a little—better. Before, he would gladly have murdered Beach and James and danced on their graves. Now, he would have been satisfied with straight murder.

However, he was alone at last. That was some slight consolation. Beach had come and gone. Footman James had come and gone. Everybody else must by now be either at Matchingham Hall or assembled in the dining-room. On the solitude which he so greatly desired there could be no further intrusion. He resumed his meditations.

 

FOR a time these dealt exclusively with the recent past, and were, in consequence, of a morbid character. Then, as the grateful glow of the whisky began to make itself felt, a softer mood came to Rupert Baxter. His mind turned to thoughts of Sue.

Men as efficient as Rupert Baxter do not fall in love in the generally accepted sense of the term. Their attitude toward the tender passion is more restrained than that of the ordinary feckless young man who loses his heart at first sight with a whoop and a shiver. Baxter approved of Sue. We cannot say more. But this approval, added to the fact that he had been informed by Lady Constance that the girl was the only daughter of a man who possessed sixty million dollars, had been enough to cause him to earmark her in his mind as the future Mrs. Baxter. In that capacity he had docketed her and filed her away at the first moment of their meeting.

Naturally, therefore, the remarks which Lord Emsworth had let fall in her hearing had caused him grave concern. It hampers a man in his wooing if the girl he has selected starts with the idea that he is as mad as a coot. He congratulated himself on the promptitude with which he had handled the situation. That letter which he had written her could not fail to put him right in her eyes.

Rupert Baxter was a man in whose lexicon there was no such word as failure. An heiress like this Miss Schoonmaker would not, he was aware, lack for suitors: but he did not fear them. If only she were making a reasonably long stay at the castle, he felt that he could rely on his force of character to win the day. In fact, it seemed to him that he could almost hear the wedding-bells ringing. Then, coming out of his dreams, he realized that it was the telephone.

He reached for the instrument with a frown, annoyed at the interruption, and spoke with an irritated sharpness.

“Hullo?”

A ghostly voice replied. The storm seemed to have affected the wires.

“Speak up!” barked Baxter.

He banged the telephone violently on the table. The treatment, as is so often the case, proved effective.

“Blandings Castle?” said the voice, no longer ghostly.

“Yes.”

“Post Office, Market Blandings, speaking. Telegram for Lady Constance Keeble.”

“I will take it.”

The voice became faint again. Baxter went through the movements as before.

“Lady Constance Keeble, Blandings Castle, Market Blandings, Shropshire, England,” said the voice, recovering strength, as if it had shaken off a wasting sickness. “Handed in at Paris.”

“Where?”

“Paris, France.”

“Oh? Well?”

The voice gathered volume.

“ ‘Terribly sorry hear news. . . .’ ”

“What?”

“ ‘News.’ ”

“Yes?”

“ ‘Terribly sorry hear news stop Quite understand stop So disappointed shall be unable come to you later as going back America at end of month stop Do hope we shall be able arrange something when I return next year stop Regards stop!’ ”

“Yes?”

“Signed ‘Myra Schoonmaker.’ ”

“Signed—what?”

“ ‘Myra Schoonmaker.’ ”

 

BAXTER’S mouth had fallen open. The forehead above the spectacles was wrinkled, the eyes behind them staring blankly and with a growing horror.

“Shall I repeat?”

“What?”

“Do you wish the message repeated?”

“No,” said Baxter in a choking voice.

He hung up the receiver. There seemed to be something crawling down his back. His brain was numbed.

Myra Schoonmaker! Telegraphing from Paris!

Then who was this girl who was at the castle calling herself by that preposterous name? An impostor, an adventuress. She must be, thought Baxter.

And if he made a move to expose her she would revenge herself by showing Lord Emsworth that letter of his.

In the agitation of the moment he had risen to his feet. He now sat down heavily.

That letter. . . !

He must recover it. He must recover it at once. As long as it remained in the girl’s possession, it was a pistol pointed at his head. Once let Lord Emsworth become acquainted with those very frank criticisms of himself which it contained, and not even his ally, Lady Constance, would be able to restore him to his lost secretaryship. The ninth Earl was a mild man, accustomed to bowing to his sister’s decrees, but there were limits beyond which he could not be pushed.

And Baxter yearned to be back at Blandings Castle in the position he had once enjoyed. Blandings was his spiritual home. He had held other secretaryships—he held one now, at a salary far higher than that which Lord Emsworth had paid him—but never had he succeeded in recapturing that fascinating sense of power, of importance, of being the man who directed the destinies of one of the largest houses in England.

At all costs he must recover that letter. And the present moment, he perceived, was ideal for the venture. The girl must have the thing in her room somewhere, and for the next hour at least she would be in the dining-room. He would have ample opportunity for a search.

He did not delay. Thirty seconds later he was mounting the stairs, his face set, his spectacles gleaming grimly. A minute later he reached his destination. No good angel, aware of what the future held, stood on the threshold to bar his entry. The door was ajar. He pushed it open and went in.

 

BLANDINGS CASTLE, like most places of its size and importance, contained bedrooms so magnificent that they were never used. With their four-poster beds and their superb but rather oppressive tapestries, they had remained untenanted since the time when Queen Elizabeth, dodging from country-house to country-house in that restless, snipe-like way of hers, had last slept in them. Of the guest-rooms still in commission, the most luxurious was that which had been given to Sue.

At the moment when Baxter stole cautiously in, it was looking its best in the gentle evening light. But Baxter was not in sight-seeing mood. He ignored the carved bedstead, the cozy armchairs, the pictures, the decorations, and the soft carpet into which his feet sank. The beauty of the sky through the French windows that gave on to the balcony drew but a single brief glance from him. Without delay, he made for the writing-desk which stood against the wall near the bed. It seemed to him a good point of departure for his search.

There were several pigeon-holes in the desk. They contained single sheets of notepaper, double sheets of notepaper, postcards, envelopes, telegraph-forms, and even a little pad on which the room’s occupant was presumably expected to jot down any stray thoughts and reflections on Life which might occur to him or her before turning in for the night. But not one of them contained the fatal letter.

He straightened himself and looked about the room. The drawer of the dressing-table now suggested itself as a possibility. He left the desk and made his way toward it.

The primary requisite of dressing-tables being a good supply of light, they are usually placed in a position to get as much of it as possible. This one was no exception. It stood so near to the open windows that the breeze was ruffling the tassels on its lamp-shades: and Baxter, arriving in front of it, was enabled for the first time to see the balcony in its entirety.

And, as he saw it, his heart seemed to side-slip. Leaning upon the parapet and looking out over the sea of gravel that swept up to the front door from the rhododendron-fringed drive, stood a girl. And not even the fact that her back was turned could prevent Baxter from identifying her.

 

FOR an instant he remained frozen. Even the greatest men congeal beneath the chill breath of the totally unexpected. He had assumed as a matter of course that Sue was down in the dining-room, and it took him several seconds to adjust his mind to the unpleasing fact that she was up on her balcony. When he recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to draw noiselessly away from the line of vision, his first emotion was one of irritation. This chopping and changing, this eleventh-hour alteration of plans, these sudden decisions to remain upstairs when they ought to be downstairs, were what made women as a sex so unsatisfactory.

To irritation succeeded a sense of defeat. There was nothing for it, he realized, but to give up his quest and go. He started to tip-toe silently to the door, agreeably conscious now of the softness and thickness of the Axminster pile that made it possible to move unheard, and had just reached it, when from the other side there came to his ears a sound of clinking and clattering—the sound, in fact, which is made by plates and dishes when they are carried on a tray to a guest who, after a long railway journey, has asked her hostess if she may take dinner in her room.

Practice makes perfect. This was the second time in the last three hours that Baxter had found himself trapped in a room in which it was vitally urgent that he should not be discovered: and he was getting the technique of the thing. On the previous occasion, in the small library, he had taken to himself wings like a bird and sailed out of the window. In the present crisis, such a course, he perceived immediately, was not feasible. The way of an eagle would profit him nothing. Soaring over the balcony, he would be observed by Sue and would, in addition, unquestionably break his neck. What was needed here was the way of a diving-duck.

 

AND so, as the door-handle turned, Rupert Baxter, even in this black hour efficient, dropped on all fours and slid under the bed as smoothly as if he had been practicing for weeks.

Owing to the restricted nature of his position and the limited range of vision which he enjoys, virtually the only way in which a man who is hiding under a bed can entertain himself is by listening to what is going on outside. He may hear something of interest, or he may hear only the draft sighing along the floor; but, for better or for worse, that is all he is able to do.

The first sound that came to Rupert Baxter was that made by the placing of the tray on the table. Then, after a pause, a pair of squeaking shoes passed over the carpet and squeaked out of hearing. Baxter recognized them as those of Footman Thomas, a confirmed squeaker.

After this, somebody puffed, causing him to deduce the presence of Beach.

“Your dinner is quite ready, miss.”

“Oh, thank you.”

The girl had apparently come in from the balcony. A chair scraped to the table. A savory scent floated to Baxter’s nostrils, causing him acute discomfort. He had just begun to realize how extremely hungry he was and how rash he had been, firstly to attempt to dine off a couple of sandwiches and secondly to undertake a mission like his present one without a square meal inside him.

“That is chicken, miss. En casserole.”

Baxter had deduced as much, and was trying not to let his mind dwell on it. He uttered a silent groan. In addition to the agony of having to smell food, he was beginning to be conscious of a growing cramp in his left leg. He turned on one side and did his best to emulate the easy nonchalance of those Indian fakirs who, doubtless from the best motives, spend the formative years of their lives lying on iron spikes.

“It looks very good.”

“I trust you will enjoy it, miss. Is there anything further that I can do for you?”

“No, thank you. Oh, yes. Would you mind fetching that manuscript from the balcony? I was reading it out there, and I left it on the chair. It’s Mr. Threepwood’s book.”

“Indeed, miss? An exceedingly interesting compilation, I should imagine?”

“Yes, very.”

“I wonder if it would be taking a liberty, miss, to ask you to inform me later, at your leisure, if I make any appearance in its pages.”

“You?”

“Yes, miss. From what Mr. Galahad has let fall from time to time, I fancy it was his intention to give me printed credit as his authority for certain of the stories which appear in the book.”

“Do you want to be in it?”

“Most decidedly, miss. I should consider it an honor. And it would please my mother.”

“Have you a mother?”

“Yes, miss. She lives at Eastbourne.”

The butler moved majestically onto the balcony, and Sue’s mind had turned to speculation about his mother and whether she looked anything like him, when there was a sound of hurrying feet without, the door flew open, and Beach’s mother passed from her mind like the unsubstantial fabric of a dream. With a little choking cry she rose to her feet. Ronnie was standing before her.

And meanwhile, if we may borrow an expression from a sister art, what of Hugo Carmody?

It is a defect unfortunately inseparable from any such document as this faithful record of events in and about Blandings Castle that the chronicler, in order to give a square deal to each of the individuals whose fortunes he has undertaken to narrate, is compelled to flit abruptly from one to the other in the manner popularized by the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. The activities of the Efficient Baxter seeming to him to demand immediate attention, he was reluctantly compelled some little while back to leave Hugo in the very act of reeling beneath a crushing blow. The moment has now come to return to him.

The first effect on a young man of sensibility and gentle upbringing of the discovery that an unfriendly detective has seen him placing stolen pigs in caravans is to induce a stunned condition of mind, a sort of mental coma. The face lengthens. The limbs grow rigid. The tie slips sideways and the shirt-cuffs recede into the coat-sleeves. The subject becomes temporarily, in short, a total loss.

 

IT IS perhaps as well, therefore, that we did not waste valuable time watching Hugo in the process of digesting Percy Pilbeam’s sensational announcement, for it would have been like looking at a statue. If the reader will endeavor to picture Rodin’s Thinker in a dinner-jacket and trousers with braid down the sides, he will have got the general idea. At the instant when Hugo Carmody makes his reappearance, life has just begun to return to the stiffened frame.

And with life came the dawning of intelligence. This ghastly snag which had popped up in his path was too big, reflected Hugo, for any man to tackle. It called for a woman’s keener wit. His first act on emerging from the depths, therefore, was to leave the drawing-room and totter downstairs to the telephone. He got the number of Matchingham Hall and, establishing communications with Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe’s butler, urged him to summon Miss Millicent Threepwood from the dinner-table.

The butler said in rather a reproving way that Miss Threepwood was at the moment busy drinking soup. Hugo, with the first flash of spirit he had shown for a quarter of an hour, replied that he didn’t care if she was bathing in it. “Fetch her,” said Hugo, and almost added the words, “You scurvy knave!” He then clung weakly to the receiver, waiting, and in a short while a sweet, but agitated, voice floated to him across the wire.

“Hugo?”

“Millicent?”

“Is that you?”

“Yes. Is that you?”

“Yes.”

Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away.

“What’s up?”

“Everything’s up.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Hugo, and did so. It was not a difficult story to tell. Its plot was so clear that a few whispered words sufficed.

“You don’t mean that?” said Millicent, the tale concluded.

“I do mean that.”

“Oh, golly!” said Millicent.

 

SILENCE followed. Hugo waited palpitatingly. The outlook seemed to him black. He wondered if he had placed too much reliance in woman’s wit. That “Golly!” had not been hopeful.

“Hugo!”

“Hullo?”

“This is a bit thick.”

“Yes,” agreed Hugo. The thickness had not escaped him.

“Well, there’s only one thing to do.”

A faint thrill passed through Hugo Carmody. One would be enough. Woman’s wit was going to bring home the bacon after all.

“Listen!”

“Well?”

“The only thing to do is for me to go back to the dining-room and tell Uncle Clarence you’ve found the Empress.”

“Eh?”

“Found her, fathead.”

“How do you mean?”

“Found her in the caravan.”

“But weren’t you listening to what I was saying?” There were tears in Hugo’s voice. “Pilbeam saw us putting her there.”

“I know.”

“Well, what’s our move when he says so?”

“Stout denial.”

“Eh?”

“We stoutly deny it,” said Millicent. The thrill passed through Hugo again, stronger than before. It might work. Yes, properly handled, it would work. He poured broken words of love and praise into the transmitter.

“That’s right,” he cried. “I see daylight. I will go to Pilbeam and tell him privily that if he opens his mouth I’ll strangle him.”

“Well, hold on. I’ll go and tell Uncle Clarence. I expect he’ll be out in a moment to have a word with you.”

“Half a minute! Millicent!”

“Well?”

“When am I supposed to have found this ghastly pig?”

“Ten minutes ago, when you were taking a stroll before dinner. You happened to pass the caravan and you heard an odd noise inside and you looked to see what it was and there was the Empress and you raced back to the house to telephone.”

“But, Millicent! Half a minute!”

“Well?”

“The old boy will think Baxter stole her.”

“So he will! Isn’t that splendid? Well, hold on.”

Hugo resumed his vigil. It was some moments later that a noise like the clucking of fowls broke out at the Matchingham Hall end of the wire. He deduced correctly that this was caused by the ninth Earl of Emsworth endeavoring to clothe his thoughts in speech.

“Kuk-kuk-kuk. . . .”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth?”

“Kuk-Carmody!”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth?”

“Is this true?”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth.”

“You’ve found the Empress?”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth.”

“In that feller Baxter’s caravan?”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth.”

So far Hugo Carmody had found his share of the dialogue delightfully easy. On these lines he would have been prepared to continue it all night. But there was something else besides “Yes, Lord Emsworth” that he must now endeavor to say. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: and that tide, he knew, would never rise higher than at the present moment. He swallowed twice to unlimber his vocal chords.

“Lord Emsworth,” he said, and, though his heart was beating fast, his voice was steady, “there is something I would like to take this opportunity of saying. It will come as a surprise to you, but I hope not as an unpleasant surprise. I love your niece Millicent, and she loves me, Lord Emsworth. We have loved each other for many weeks and it is my hope that you will give your consent to our marriage.

“I am not a rich man, Lord Emsworth. In fact, strictly speaking, except for my salary I haven’t a bean in the world. But my uncle Lester owns Rudge Hall in Worcestershire—I daresay you have heard of the place? You turn to the left off the main road to Birmingham and go about a couple of miles . . . well, anyway, it’s a biggish sort of place in Worcestershire and my uncle Lester owns it and the property is entailed. I’m next in succession. . . .

“I won’t pretend that my uncle Lester shows any indications of passing in his checks, he was extremely fit last time I saw him, but, after all, he’s getting on and all flesh is as grass and, as I say, I’m next man in, so I shall eventually succeed to quite a fairish bit of the stuff and a house and park and rent-roll and all that, so what I mean is, it isn’t as if I wasn’t in a position to support Millicent later on, and if you realized, Lord Emsworth, how we love one another, I’m sure you would see that it wouldn’t be playing the game to put any obstacles in the way of our happiness, so what I’m driving at, if you follow me, is, may we charge ahead?”

 

THERE was dead silence at the other end of the wire. It seemed as if this revelation of good man’s love had struck Lord Emsworth dumb. It was only some moments later, after he had said “Hullo!” six times and “I say, are you there?” twice that it was borne in upon Hugo that he had wasted two hundred and eighty words of the finest eloquence on empty space.

His natural chagrin at this discovery was sensibly diminished by the sudden sound of Millicent’s voice in his ear.

“Hullo!”

“Hullo!”

“Hullo?”

“Hullo!”

“Hugo!”

“Hullo!”

“I say, Hugo!” She spoke with the joyous excitement of a girl who has just emerged from the center of a family dog-fight. “I say, Hugo, things are hotting up here properly. I sprung it on Uncle Clarence just now that I want to marry you!”

“So did I. Only he wasn’t there.”

“I said, ‘Uncle Clarence, aren’t you grateful to Mr. Carmody for finding the Empress?’ and he said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be sure. Capital boy! Capital boy! Always liked him.’ And I said, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t by any chance let me marry him?’ and he said, ‘Eh, what? Marry him?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Marry him.’ And he said, ‘Certainly, certainly, certainly, certainly, by all means.’ And then Aunt Constance had a fit, and Uncle Gally said she was a kill-joy and ought to be ashamed of herself for throwing the gaff into love’s young dream, and Uncle Clarence kept on saying, ‘Certainly, certainly, certainly.’ I don’t know what old Parsloe thinks of it all. He’s sitting in his chair, looking at the ceiling and drinking hock. The butler left at the end of round one. I’m going back to see how it’s all coming out. Hold the line.”

 

A MAN for whom Happiness and Misery are swaying in the scales three miles away, and whose only medium of learning the result of the contest is a telephone wire, is not likely to ring off impatiently. Hugo sat tense and breathless, like one listening in on the radio to a championship fight in which he has a financial interest. It was only when a cheery voice spoke at his elbow that he realized that his solitude had been invaded, and by Percy Pilbeam at that.

Percy Pilbeam was looking rosy and replete. He swayed slightly and his smile was rather wider and more pebble-beached than a total abstainer’s would have been.

“Hullo, Carmody,” said Percy Pilbeam.

It came to Hugo that he had something to say to this man.

“Here, you!” he cried.

“Yes, Carmody?”

“Do you want to be battered to a pulp?”

“No, Carmody.”

“Then listen. You didn’t see me put that pig in the caravan. Understand?”

“But I did, Carmody.”

“You didn’t—not if you want to go on living.”

Percy Pilbeam appeared to be in a mood not only of keen intelligence but of the utmost reasonableness and amiability.

“Say no more, Carmody,” he said agreeably. “I take your point. You want me not to tell anybody I saw you put that caravan in the pig. Quite, Carmody, quite.”

“Well, bear it in mind.”

“I will, Carmody. Oh, yes, Carmody, I will. I’m going for a stroll outside, Carmody. Care to join me?”

“Go to hell!”

“Quite,” said Percy Pilbeam.

He tacked unsteadily to the door, aimed himself at it and passed through. And a moment later Millicent’s voice spoke:

“Hugo?”

“Hullo?”

“Oh, Hugo, darling, the battle’s over. We’ve won. Uncle Clarence has said ‘Certainly’ sixty-five times, and he’s just told Aunt Constance that if she thinks she can bully him she’s very much mistaken. It’s a walk-over. They’re all coming back right away in the car. Uncle Clarence is an angel.”

“So are you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Not such an angel as you are.”

“Much more of an angel than I am,” said Hugo, in the voice of one trained to the appraising and classifying of angels.

“Well, anyway, you precious old thing, I’m going to give them the slip and walk home along the road. Get out Ronnie’s two-seater and come and pick me up and we’ll go for a drive together, miles and miles through the country. It’s the most perfect evening.”

“You bet it is!” said Hugo fervently. “What I call something like an evening. Give me two minutes to get the car out and five to make the trip and I’ll be with you.”

“ ’At-a-boy!” said Millicent.

“ ’At-a-baby!” said Hugo.

 

SUE stood staring, wide-eyed. This was the moment which she had tried to picture to herself a hundred times. And always her imagination had proved unequal to the task. Sometimes she had seen Ronnie in her mind’s eye cold, aloof, hostile; sometimes gaping and tottering, dumb with amazement; sometimes pointing a finger at her like a character in a melodrama and denouncing her as an impostor. The one thing for which she had not been prepared was what happened now.

Eton and Cambridge train their sons well. Once they have grasped the fundamental fact of life that all exhibitions of emotion are bad form, bombshells cannot disturb their poise and earthquakes are lucky if they get so much as an ‘Eh, what?’ from them. But Cambridge has its limitations, and so has Eton. And remorse had goaded Ronnie Fish to a point where their iron discipline had ceased to operate. He was stirred to his depths, and his scarlet face, his rumpled hair, his starting eyes and his twitching fingers all proclaimed the fact.

“Ronnie!” cried Sue.

It was all she had time to say. The thought of what she had done for his sake; the thought that for love of him she had come to Blandings Castle under false colors—an impostor—faced at every turn by the risk of detection—liable at any moment to be ignominiously exposed and looked at through a lorgnette by his Aunt Constance; the thought of the shameful way he had treated her . . . all these thoughts were racking Ronald Fish with a searing anguish. They had brought the hot blood of the Fishes to the boil, and now, face to face with her, he did not hesitate.

He sprang forward, clasped her in his arms, hugged her to him. To Baxter’s revolted ears, though he tried not to listen, there came in a husky cataract the sound of a Fish’s self-reproaches. Ronnie was saying what he thought of himself, and his opinion appeared not to be high. He said he was a beast, a brute, a swine, a cad, a hound and a worm. If he had been speaking of Percy Pilbeam, he could scarcely have been less complimentary.

 

EVEN up to this point, Baxter had not liked the dialogue. It now became perfectly nauseating. Sue said it had all been her fault. Ronnie said, No, his. No, hers, said Sue. No, his, said Ronnie. No, hers, said Sue. No, altogether his, said Ronnie. It must have been his, he pointed out, because, as he had observed before, he was a hound and a worm. He now went further. He revealed himself as a blister, a tick and a perishing outsider.

“You’re not!”

“I am!”

“You’re not!”

“I am!”

“Of course you’re not!”

“I certainly am!”

“Well, I love you anyway.”

“You can’t.”

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

Baxter writhed in silent anguish.

“How long?” said Baxter to his immortal soul. “How long?” The question was answered with a startling promptitude. From the neighborhood of the French windows there sounded a discreet cough. The debaters sprang apart, two minds with but a single thought.

“Your manuscript, miss,” said Beach sedately.

Sue looked at him. Ronnie looked at him. Sue until this moment had forgotten his existence. Ronnie had supposed him downstairs, busy about his butlerine duties. Neither seemed very glad to see him.

Ronnie was the first to speak.

“Oh—hullo, Beach!”

There being no answer to this except “Hullo, sir!” which is a thing that butlers do not say, Beach contented himself with a benignant smile. It had the unfortunate effect of making Ronnie think that the man was laughing at him, and the Fishes were men at whom butlers may not lightly laugh. He was about to utter a heated speech, indicating this, when the injudiciousness of such a course presented itself to his mind. Beach must be placated. He forced his voice to a note of geniality.

“So there you are, Beach?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose all this must seem tolerably rummy to you?”

“No, sir.”

“No?”

“I had already been informed, Mr. Ronald, of the nature of your feelings toward this lady.”

“What!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who told you?”

“Mr. Pilbeam, sir.”

Ronnie uttered a gasp. Then he became calmer. He had suddenly remembered that this man was his ally, his accomplice, linked to him not only by a friendship dating back to his boyhood but by the even stronger bond of a mutual crime. Between them there need be no reserves. Delicate though the situation was, he now felt equal to it.

“Beach,” he said. “How much do you know?”

“All, sir.”

“All?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Such as—?”

Beach coughed.

“I am aware that this lady is a Miss Sue Brown. And, according to my informant, she is employed in the chorus of the Regal Theater.”

“Quite the encyclopedia, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want to marry Miss Brown, Beach.”

“I can readily appreciate such a desire on your part, Mr. Ronald,” said the butler with a paternal smile.

Sue caught at the smile.

“Ronnie! He’s all right. I believe he’s a friend.”

“Of course he’s a friend! Old Beach. He is one of my earliest and stoutest pals.”

“I mean, he isn’t going to give us away.”

“Me, miss?” said Beach, shocked. “Certainly not.”

“Splendid fellow, Beach!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Beach,” said Ronnie, “the time has come to act. No more delay. I’ve got to make myself solid with Uncle Clarence at once. Directly he gets back tonight, I shall go to him and tell him that Empress of Blandings is in the gamekeeper’s cottage in the west wood, and then, while he’s still weak, I shall spring on him the announcement of my engagement.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Ronald, the animal is no longer in the cottage.”

“You’ve moved it?”

“Not I, sir. Mr. Carmody. By a most regrettable chance Mr. Carmody found me feeding it this afternoon. He took it away and deposited it in some place of which I am not cognizant, sir.”

“But, good heavens, he’ll dash the whole scheme. Where is he?”

“You wish me to find him, sir?”

“Of course I wish you to find him. Go at once and ask him where that pig is. Tell him it’s vital.”

“Very good, sir.”

Sue had listened with bewilderment to this talk of pigs.

“I don’t understand, Ronnie.”

 

RONNIE was pacing the room in agitation. Once he came so close to where Baxter lay in his snug harbor that the ex-secretary had a flashing glimpse of a sock with a lavender clock. It was the first object of beauty that he had seen for a long time, and he should have appreciated it more than he did.

“I can’t explain now,” said Ronnie. “It’s too long. But I can tell you this. If we don’t get that pig back, we’re in the soup.”

“Ronnie!”

Ronnie had ceased to pace the room. He was standing in a listening attitude.

“What’s that?”

He sprang quickly to the balcony, looked over the parapet and came softly back.

“Sue!”

“What!”

“It’s that blighter Pilbeam,” said Ronnie in a guarded undertone. “He’s climbing up the waterspout!”

(To be concluded next week)

 

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Annotations to this novel in book form are on this site.

Printer’s errors corrected above:
p. 48a: Magazine had “Capital boy! Always liked him?”; question mark changed to period as in US and UK books.
p. 49a: Magazine had “busy about his butlering duties”; changed to ‘butlerine’ as in other sources, an adjective Wodehouse uses often, as he often uses ‘buttling’ for the gerund form.
p. 49a: Magazine had “must seem tolerable rummy”; corrected to ‘tolerably’ as in US and UK books.

 

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