Blandings Castle and Elsewhere Page 14

  He made his decision. Better to cease to be a Napoleon than be a Napoleon in exile.

  'Mphm,' said Angus McAllister.

  'Oh, and by the way, McAllister,' said Lord Emsworth, 'that matter of the gravel path through the yew alley. I've been thinking it over, and I won't have it. Not on any account. Mutilate my beautiful moss with a beastly gravel path? Make an eyesore of the loveliest spot in one of the finest and oldest gardens in the United Kingdom? Certainly not. Most decidedly not. Try to remember, McAllister, as you work in the gardens of Blandings Castle, that you are not back in Glasgow, laying out recreation grounds. That is all, McAllister. Er – dash it – that is all.'

  'Mphm,' said Angus McAllister.

  He turned. He walked away. The potting-shed swallowed him up. Nature resumed its breathing. The breeze began to blow again. And all over the gardens birds who had stopped on their high note carried on according to plan.

  Lord Emsworth took out his handkerchief and dabbed with it at his forehead. He was shaken, but a novel sense of being a man among men thrilled him. It might seem bravado, but he almost wished – yes, dash it, he almost wished – that his sister Constance would come along and start something while he felt like this.

  He had his wish.

  'Clarence!'

  Yes, there she was, hurrying towards him up the garden path. She, like McAllister, seemed agitated. Something was on her mind.

  'Clarence!'

  'Don't keep saying "Clarence!" as if you were a dashed parrot,' said Lord Emsworth haughtily. 'What the dickens is the matter, Constance?'

  'Matter? Do you know what the time is? Do you know that everybody is waiting down there for you to make your speech?'

  Lord Emsworth met her eye sternly.

  'I do not,' he said. And I don't care. I'm not going to make any dashed speech. If you want a speech, let the vicar make it. Or make it yourself. Speech! I never heard such dashed nonsense in my life.' He turned to Gladys. 'Now, my dear,' he said, 'if you will just give me time to get out of these infernal clothes and this ghastly collar and put on something human, we'll go down to the village and have a chat with Ern.'

  Elsewhere –

  1. A Bobbie Wickham Story

  7 MR POTTER TAKES A REST CURE

  MR John Hamilton Potter, founder and proprietor of the well-known New York publishing house of J. H. Potter, Inc., laid down the typescript which had been engaging his leisurely attention, and from the depths of his basket-chair gazed dreamily across the green lawns and gleaming flower-beds to where Skeldings Hall basked in the pleasant June sunshine. He was feeling quietly happy. The waters of the moat glittered like liquid silver; a gentle breeze brought to his nostrils the scent of newly-cut grass; the doves in the immemorial elms cooed with precisely the right gentlemanly intonation; and he had not seen Clifford Gandle since luncheon. God, it seemed to Mr Potter, was in His Heaven and all was right with the world.

  And how near, he reflected, he had come to missing all this delightful old-world peace. When, shortly after his arrival in England, he had met Lady Wickham at a Pen and Ink Club dinner and she had invited him to pay a visit to Skeldings, his first impulse had been to decline. His hostess was a woman of rather markedly overwhelming personality; and, inasmuch as he had only recently recovered from a nervous breakdown and had been ordered by his doctor complete rest and tranquillity, it had seemed to him that at close range and over an extended period of time she might be a little too much for the old system. Furthermore, she wrote novels: and that instinct of self preservation which lurks in every publisher had suggested to him that behind her invitation lay a sinister desire to read these to him one by one with a view to getting him to produce them in America. Only the fact that he was a lover of the old and picturesque, coupled with the fact that Skeldings Hall dated back to the time of the Tudors, had caused him to accept.

  Not once, however – not even when Clifford Gandle was expressing to him with a politician's trained verbosity his views on the Gold Standard and other weighty matters – had he regretted his decision. When he looked back on his life of the past eighteen months – a life spent in an inferno of shrilling telephones and authors, many of them female, popping in to abuse him for not advertising their books better – he could almost fancy that he had been translated to Paradise.

  A Paradise, moreover, which was not without its Peri. For at this moment there approached Mr Potter across the lawn, walking springily as if she were constructed of whalebone and indiarubber, a girl. She was a boyish-looking girl, slim and graceful, and the red hair on her bare head glowed pleasingly in the sun.

  'Hullo, Mr Potter!' she said.

  The publisher beamed upon her. This was Roberta Wickham, his hostess's daughter, who had returned to her ancestral home two days ago from a visit to friends in the North. A friendly young thing, she had appealed to Mr Potter from the first.

  'Well, well, well!' said Mr Potter.

  'Don't get up. What are you reading?' Bobbie Wickham picked up the manuscript. '"Ethics of Suicide,"' she read. 'Cheery!'

  Mr Potter laughed indulgently.

  'No doubt it seems an odd thing to be reading on such a day and in such surroundings. But a publisher is never free. This was sent over for my decision from my New York office. They won't leave me alone, you see, even when I am on vacation.'

  Bobbie Wickham's hazel eyes clouded pensively.

  'There's a lot to be said for suicide,' she murmured. 'If I had to see much of Clifford Gandle, I'd commit suicide myself

  Mr Potter started. He had always liked this child, but he had never dreamed that she was such a completely kindred soul.

  'Don't you like Mr Gandle?'

  'No.'

  'Nor do I.'

  'Nor does anyone,' said Bobbie, 'except mother.' Her eyes clouded again. 'Mother thinks he's wonderful.'

  'She does?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, well!' said Mr Potter.

  Bobbie brooded.

  'He's a member of Parliament, you know.'

  'Yes.'

  'And they say he may be in the Cabinet any day.'

  'So he gave me to understand.'

  'And all that sort of thing is very bad for a man, don't you think? I mean, it seems to make him so starchy.'

  'The very word.'

  And pompous.'

  'The exact adjective I would have selected,' agreed Mr Potter. 'In our frequent conversations, before you arrived, he addressed me as if I were a half-witted deputation of his constituents.'

  'Did you see much of him before I came?'

  A great deal, though I did my best to avoid him.'

  'He's a difficult man to avoid.'

  'Yes.' Mr Potter chuckled sheepishly. 'Shall I tell you something that happened a day or two ago? You must not let it go any farther, of course. I was coming out of the smoking-room one morning, and I saw him approaching me along the passage. So – so I jumped back and – ha, ha! – hid in a small cupboard.'

  'Jolly sensible.'

  'Yes. But unfortunately he opened the cupboard door and discovered me. It was exceedingly embarrassing.'

  'What did you say?'

  'There was nothing much I could say. I'm afraid he must have thought me out of my senses.'

  'Well, I— All right, mother. Coming.'

  The rich contralto of a female novelist calling to its young had broken the stillness of the summer afternoon. Mr Potter looked up with a start. Lady Wickham was standing on the lawn. It seemed to Mr Potter that, as his little friend moved towards her, something of the springiness had gone out of her walk. It was as if she moved reluctantly.

  'Where have you been, Roberta?' asked Lady Wickham, as her daughter came within earshot of the normal tone of voice. 'I have been looking everywhere for you.'

  'Anything special, mother?'

  'Mr Gandle wants to go to Hertford. He has to get some books. I think you had better drive him in your car.'

  'Oh, mother!'

  Mr Potter, watching from his chair
, observed a peculiar expression flit into Lady Wickham's face. Had he been her English publisher, instead of merely her prospective American publisher, he would have been familiar with that look. It meant that Lady Wickham was preparing to exercise her celebrated will-power.

  'Roberta,' she said, with dangerous quiet, 'I particularly wish you to drive Mr Gandle to Hertford.'

  'But I had promised to go over and play tennis at the Crufts'.'

  'Mr Gandle is a much better companion for you than a young waster like Algy Crufts. You must run over and tell him that you cannot play to-day.'

  A few minutes later a natty two-seater drew up at the front door of the Crufts' residence down the road; and Bobbie Wickham, seated at the wheel, gave tongue.

  'Algy!'

  The flannel-clad form of Mr Algernon Crufts appeared at a window.

  'Hullo! Down in a jiffy.'

  There was an interval. Then Mr Crufts joined her on the drive.

  'Hullo! I say, you haven't brought your racket, you poor chump,' he said.

  'Tennis is off,' announced Bobbie briefly. 'I've got to drive Clifford Gandle in to Hertford.' She paused. 'I say, Algy, shall I tell you something?'

  'What?'

  'Between ourselves.'

  Absolutely.'

  'Mother wants me to marry Clifford Gandle.'

  Algy Crufts uttered a strangled exclamation. Such was his emotion that he nearly swallowed the first eight inches of his cigarette-holder.

  'Marry Clifford Gandle!'

  'Yes. She's all for it. She says he would have a steadying influence on me.'

  'Ghastly! Take my advice and give the project the most absolute go-by. I was up at Oxford with the man. A blighter, if ever there was one. He was President of the Union and all sorts of frightful things.'

  'It's all very awkward. I don't know what to do.'

  'Kick him in the eye and tell him to go to blazes. That's the procedure.'

  'But it's so hard not to do anything mother wants you to do. You know mother.'

  'I do,' said Mr Crufts, who did.

  'Oh, well,' said Bobbie, 'you never know. There's always the chance that she may take a sudden dislike to him for some reason or other. She does take sudden dislikes to people.'

  'She does,' said Mr Crufts. Lady Wickham had disliked him at first sight.

  'Well, let's hope she will suddenly dislike Clifford Gandle. But I don't mind telling you, Algy, that at the moment things are looking pretty black.'

  'Keep smiling,' urged Mr Crufts.

  'What's the good of smiling, you fathead?' said Bobbie morosely.

  Night had fallen on Skeldings Hall. Lady Wickham was in her study, thinking those great thoughts which would subsequently be copyrighted in all languages, including the Scandinavian. Bobbie was strolling somewhere in the grounds, having eluded Mr Gandle after dinner. And Mr Gandle, baffled but not defeated, had donned a light overcoat and gone out to try to find Bobbie.

  As for Mr Potter, he was luxuriating in restful solitude in a punt under a willow by the bank of the moat.

  From the first moment he had set eyes on it, Hamilton Potter had loved the moat at Skeldings Hall. Here, by the willow, it broadened out almost into the dimensions of a lake; and there was in the glitter of stars on its surface and the sleepy rustling of birds in the trees along its bank something infinitely soothing. The healing darkness wrapped the publisher about like a blanket; the cool night-wind fanned caressingly a forehead a little heated by Lady Wickham's fine old port; and gradually, lulled by the beauty of the scene, Mr Potter allowed himself to float into one of those reveries which come to publishers at moments such as this.

  He mused on jackets and remainders and modes of distribution; on royalties and advertisements and spring lists and booksellers' discounts. And his random thoughts, like fleeting thistledown, had just drifted to the question of the growing price of pulp-paper, when from somewhere near by there came the sound of a voice, jerking him back to the world again.

  'Oh, let the solid ground not fail beneath my feet before that I have found what some have found so sweet,' said the voice.

  A moderate request, one would have supposed; and yet it irritated Mr Potter like the bite of a mosquito. For the voice was the voice of Clifford Gandle.

  'Robertah,' proceeded the voice, and Mr Potter breathed again. He had taken it for granted that the man had perceived and was addressing himself. He gathered now that his presence had not been discovered.

  'Robertah,' said Mr Gandle, 'surely you cannot have been blind to the na-chah of my feelings? Surely you must have guessed that it was love that—'

  Hamilton Potter congealed into a solid mass of frozen horror. He was listening-in on a proposal of marriage.

  The emotions of any delicate-minded man who finds himself in such a position cannot fail to be uncomfortable; and the greater his delicacy of mind the more acute must the discomfort be. Mr Potter, being, as are all publishers, more like a shrinking violet than anything else in the world, nearly swooned. His scalp tingled; his jaw fell; and his toes began to open and shut like poppet-valves.

  'Heart of my heart—' said Mr Gandle.

  Mr Potter gave a convulsive shudder. And the punt-pole, which had been resting on the edge of the boat, clattered down with a noise like a machine-gun.

  There was a throbbing silence. Then Mr Gandle spoke sharply.

  'Is anybody they-ah?'

  There are situations in which a publisher can do only one thing. Raising himself noiselessly, Mr Potter wriggled to the side of the punt and lowered himself into the water.

  'Who is they-ah?'

  Mr Potter with a strong effort shut his mouth, which was trying to emit a howl of anguish. He had never supposed that water could be so cold. Silently he waded out towards the opposite bank. The only thing that offered any balm in this black moment was the recollection that his hostess had informed him that the moat was not more than four feet deep.

  But what Lady Wickham had omitted to inform him was that in one or two places there were ten-foot holes. It came, therefore, as a surprise to Mr Potter, when, after he had travelled some six yards, there happened to him that precise disaster which Mr Gandle, in his recent remarks, had expressed himself as so desirous of avoiding. As the publisher took his next step forward, the solid ground failed beneath his feet.

  'Oosh!' ejaculated Mr Potter.

  Clifford Gandle was a man of swift intuition. Hearing the cry and becoming aware at the same time of loud splashing noises, he guessed in one masterly flash of inductive reasoning that someone had fallen in. He charged down the bank and perceived the punt. He got into the punt. Bobbie Wickham got into the punt. Mr Gandle seized the pole and propelled the punt out into the waste of waters.

  'Are you they-ah?' inquired Mr Gandle.

  'Glub!' exclaimed Mr Potter.

  'I see him,' said Bobbie. 'More to the left.'

  Clifford Gandle drove the rescuing craft more to the left, and was just digging the pole into the water when Mr Potter, coming up for the third time, found it within his reach. The partiality of drowning men for straws is proverbial; but, as a class, they are broad-minded and will clutch at punt-poles with equal readiness. Mr Potter seized the pole and pulled strongly; and Clifford Gandle, who happened to be leaning his whole weight on it at the moment, was not proof against what practically amounted to a formal invitation. A moment later he had joined Mr Potter in the depths.

  Bobbie Wickham rescued the punt-pole, which was floating away on the tide, and peered down through the darkness. Stirring things were happening below. Clifford Gandle had grasped Mr Potter. Mr Potter had grasped Clifford Gandle. And Bobbie, watching from above, was irresistibly reminded of a picture she had seen in her childhood of alligators fighting in the River Hooghly. She raised the pole, and, with the best intentions, prodded at the tangled mass.

  The treatment proved effective. The pole, taking Clifford Gandle shrewdly in the stomach, caused him to release his grip on Mr Potter; and Mr Potter, suddenly di
scovering that he was in shallow water again, did not hesitate. By the time Clifford Gandle had scrambled into the punt he was on dry land, squelching rapidly towards the house.

  A silence followed his departure. Then Mr Gandle, expelling the last pint of water from his mouth, gave judgment.

  'The man must be mad!'

  He found some more water which he had overlooked, and replaced it.

  'Stark, staring mad!' he repeated. 'He must have deliberately flung himself in.'

  Bobbie Wickham was gazing out into the night; and, had the visibility been better, her companion might have observed in her expression the raptness of inspiration.

  'There is no other explanation. The punt was they-ah, by the bank, and he was hee-yah, right out in the middle of the moat. I've suspected for days that he was unbalanced. Once I found him hiding in a cupboard. Crouching there with a wild gleam in his eyes. And that brooding look of his. That strange brooding look. I've noticed it every time I've been talking to him.'

  Bobbie broke the silence, speaking in a low, grave voice.

  'Didn't you know about poor Mr Potter?'

  'Eh?'

  'That he has suicidal mania?'

  Clifford Gandle drew in his breath sharply.

  'You can't blame him,' said Bobbie. 'How would you feel if you came home one day and found your wife and your two brothers and a cousin sitting round the dinner-table stone dead?'

  'What!'

  'Poisoned. Something in the curry.' She shivered. 'This morning I found him in the garden gloating over a book called "Ethics of Suicide."'

  Clifford Gandle ran his fingers through his dripping hair.

  'Something ought to be done!'

  'What can you do? The thing isn't supposed to be known. If you mention it to him, he will simply go away; and then mother will be furious, because she wants him to publish her books in America.'

  'I shall keep the closest watch on the man.'

  'Yes, that's the thing to do,' agreed Bobbie.

  She pushed the punt to the shore. Mr Gandle, who had begun to feel chilly, leaped out and sped to the house to change his clothes. Bobbie, following at a more leisurely pace, found her mother standing in the passage outside her study. Lady Wickham's manner was perturbed.