Lord Emsworth and Others Page 2

  'What about?'

  'Giving this man Simmons's place.'

  'But I haven't.'

  ‘Yes, you have.'

  And so, Lord Emsworth discovered as he met her eye, he had. It often happened that way after he and Connie had talked a thing over. But he was not pleased about it.

  'But, Connie, dash it all -'

  'We will not discuss it any more, Clarence.’

  Her eye played upon him. Then she moved to the door and was gone.

  Alone at last, Lord Emsworth took up his Whiffle on The Care Of The Pig in the hope that it might, as had happened before, bring calm to the troubled spirit. It did, and he was absorbed in it when the door opened once more.

  His niece Jane stood oh the threshold.

  Lord Emsworth's niece was the third prettiest girl in Shropshire. In her "general appearance she resembled a dewy rose, and it might have been thought that Lord Emsworth, who yielded to none in his appreciation of roses, would have felt his heart leap up at the sight of her.

  This was not the case. His heart did leap, but not up. He was a man with certain definite views about rose. He preferred them without quite such tight lips and determined chins. And he did not like them to look at him as if he were something slimy and horrible which they had found under a flat stone.

  The wretched man was now fully conscious of his position. Under the magic spell of Whiffle he had been able to thrust from his mind for a while the thought of what Jane was going to say when she heard the bad news; but now, as she started to advance slowly into the room in that sinister, purposeful way characteristic of so many of his female relations, he realized what he was in for and his soul shrank into itself like a salted snail.

  Jane, he could not but remember, was the daughter of his sister Charlotte, and many good judges considered Lady Charlotte a tougher egg even than Lady Constance, or her younger sister, Lady Julia. He still quivered at some of the things that Charlotte had said to him in her time; and, eying Jane apprehensively, he saw no reason for supposing that she had not inherited quite a good deal of the maternal fire.

  The girl came straight to the point. Her mother, Lord Emsworth recalled, had always done the same.

  ‘I should like and explanation, Uncle Clarence.’

  Lord Emsworth cleared his throat unhappily.

  ‘Explanation, my dear?’

  ‘Explanation was what I said.’

  ‘Oh, explanation? Ah, yes. Er – what about?’

  ‘You know jolly well what about. That agent job. Aunt Constance says you’ve changed your mind. Have you?’

  ‘Er…Ah…Well…’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Well…Er…Ah…Yes.’

  ‘Worm!’ said Jane. ‘Miserable, crawling, cringing, gelatine-backboned worm!’

  Lord Emsworth, though he had been expecting something alone these lines, quivered as if he had been harpooned.

  ‘That,' he said, attempting a dignity which he was far from feeling, 'is not a very nice thing to say ...'

  'If you only knew the things I would like to say! I'm holding myself in. So you've changed your mind, have you? Ha! Does a sacred promise mean nothing to you, Uncle Clarence? Does a girl's whole life's happiness mean nothing to you? I never would have believed that you could have been such a blighter.’

  'I am not a blighter.'

  ‘Yes, you are. You're a life-blighter. You're trying to blight my life. Well, you aren't going to do it. Whatever happens, I mean to marry George-'

  Lord Emsworth was genuinely surprised.

  'Marry George? But Connie told me you were in love with this fellow you met in Devonshire.'

  'His name is George Abercrombie.’

  ‘Oh, ah?' said Lord Emsworth, enlightened. 'Bless my soul, I thought you meant my grandson, George, and it puzzled me. Because you couldn't marry him, of course. He's your brother or cousin or something. Besides, he's too young for you. What would George be? Ten? Eleven?'

  He broke off. A reproachful look had hit him like a shell,

  'Uncle Clarence!'

  "My dear?'

  'Is this a time for drivelling?'

  'My dear!'

  "Well, is it? Look in your heart and ask yourself. Here I am, with everybody spitting on their hands and dashing about trying to ruin my life's whole happiness, and instead of being kind and understanding and sympathetic you start talking rot about young George.'

  'I was only saying -'

  ‘I heard what you were saying, and it made me sick. You really must be the most callous man that ever lived. I can't understand you of all people behaving like this, Uncle Clarence. I always thought you were fond of me.'

  'I am fond of you.'

  'It doesn't look like it. Flinging yourself into this foul conspiracy to wreck my life.’

  Lord Emsworth remembered a good one. 'I have your best interests at heart, my dear.'

  It did not go very well. A distinct sheet of flame shot from the girl's eyes.

  'What do you mean, my best interests? The way Aunt. Constance talks, and the way you are backing her up, anyone-would think that George was someone in a straw hat and a scarlet cummerbund that I'd picked up on the pier at Blackpool. The Abercrombies are one of the oldest families in Devonshire. They date back to the Conquest, and they practically ran the Crusades. When your ancestors were staying at home on the plea of war work of national importance and wangling jobs at the base, the Abercrombies were out fighting: the Paynim.'

  'I was at school with a boy named Abercrombie,' said Lord Emsworth musingly.

  'I hope he kicked you. No, no, I don't mean that. I'm sorry. The one thing I'm trying to do is to keep this little talk free of -what's the word?'

  Lord Emsworth said he did not know.

  'Acrimony. I want to be calm and cool and sensible. Honestly, Uncle Clarence, you would love George. You'll be a sap if you give him the bird without seeing him. He's the most wonderful man on earth. He got into the last eight at Wimbledon this year.'

  'Did he, indeed? Last eight what?’

  ‘And there isn't anything he doesn't know about running an estate. The very first thing he said when he came into the park Was that a lot of the timber wanted seeing to badly.'

  'Blast his impertinence,' said Lord Emsworth warmly. 'My timber is in excellent condition.'

  'Not if George says it isn't. George knows timber.'

  ‘So do I know timber.'

  ‘Not so well as George does. But never mind about that. Let's get back to this loathsome plot to ruin my life's whole happiness. Why can't you be a sport, Uncle Clarence, and stand up for me? Can't you understand what this means to me? Weren't you ever in love?'

  'Certainly I was in love. Dozens of times. I'll tell you a very funny story -’

  ‘I don't want to hear funny stories.’

  'No, no. Quite. Exactly.’

  'All I want is to hear you saying that you will give George Mr Simmons's job, so that we can get married.’

  'But your aunt seems to feel so strongly -'

  'I know what she feels strongly. She wants me to marry that ass Roegate’'

  'Does she?’

  'Yes, and I'm not going to. You can tell her from me that I wouldn't marry Bertie Roegate if he were the only man in the world -'

  There's a song of that name,' said Lord Emsworth, interested. 'They sang it during the War. No, it wasn't "man". It was "girl". If you were the only . . ." How did it go? Ah, yes. "If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy..."'

  'Uncle Clarence!‘

  "My dear?'

  ‘Please don't sing. You're not in the tap-room of the Emsworth Arms now.'

  'I have never been in the tap-room of the Emsworth Arms.'

  'Or at a smoking-concert. Really, you seem to have the most extraordinary idea of the sort of attitude that's fitting when you're talking to a girl whose life's happiness everybody is sprinting about trying to ruin. First you talk about young George, then you start trying to tell funny stories, and no
w you sing comic songs.'

  'It wasn't a comic song.’

  "It was, the way you sang it. Well?"

  ‘Eh?'

  ‘Have you decided what you are going to do about this?’ ‘About what?'

  The girl was silent for a moment, during which moment she looked so like her mother that Lord Emsworth shuddered.

  'Uncle Clarence,' she said in a low, trembling voice, 'you are not going to pretend that you don't know what we've been talking about all this time? Are you or are you not going to give George that job?.’

  'Well-'

  ‘Well?'

  ‘Well-'

  ‘We can't stay here for ever, saying "Well" at one another. Are you or are you not?'

  ‘My dear, I don't see how I can. Your aunt seems to feel so very strongly .. .'

  He spoke mumbling, avoiding his companion's eye, and he had paused, searching for words, when from the drive outside there arose a sudden babble of noise. Raised voices were proceeding from the great open spaces. He recognized his sister Constance's penetrating soprano, and mingling with it his grandson George's treble 'Coo'. Competing with both, there came the throaty baritone of Rupert Baxter. Delighted with the opportunity of changing the subject, he hurried to the window.

  ‘Bless my soul! What's all that?'

  The battle, whatever it may have been about, had apparently rolled away in some unknown direction, for he could see nothing from the window but Rupert Baxter, who was smoking a cigarette in what seemed a rather overwrought manner. He turned back, and with infinite relief discovered that he was alone. His niece had disappeared. He took up Whiffle on The Care Of The Pig and had just started to savour once more the perfect prose of that chapter about swill and bran-mash, when the door opened. Jane was back. She stood on the threshold, eyeing her uncle coldly.

  'Reading, Uncle Clarence?'

  'Eh? Oh, ah, yes. I was just glancing at Whiffle on The Care Of The Pig.

  'So you actually have the heart to read at a time like this? Well, well! Do you ever read Western novels, Uncle Clarence?’

  ‘Eh? Western novels? No. No, never.'

  'I'm sorry. I was reading one the other day, and I hoped that you might be able to explain something that puzzled me. What one cowboy said to another cowboy.'

  'Oh, yes?'

  'This cowboy - the first cowboy - said to the other cowboy -the second cowboy - "Gol dern ye, Hank Spivis, for a sneaking, ornery, low-down, double-crossing, hornswoggling skunk." Can you tell me what a sneaking, ornery, low-down, double-crossing, hornswoggling skunk is, Uncle Clarence?'

  'I'm afraid I can't, my dear.'

  ‘I thought you might know.'

  'No.'

  ‘Oh.'

  She passed from the room, and Lord Emsworth resumed his Whiffle.

  But it was not long before the volume was resting on his knee while he stared before him with a sombre gaze. He was reviewing the recent scene and wishing that he had come better out of it He was a vague man, but not so vague as to be unaware that he might have shown up in a more heroic light.

  How long he sat brooding, he could not have said. Some little time, undoubtedly, for the shadows on the terrace had, he observed as he glanced out of the window, lengthened quite a good deal since he had seen them last. He was about to rise and seek consolation from a ramble among the flowers in the garden below, when the door opened - it seemed to Lord Emsworth, who was now feeling a little morbid, that that blasted door had never stopped opening since he had come to the library to be alone - and Beach, the butler, entered.

  He was carrying an airgun in one hand and in the other a silver salver with a box of ammunition on it.

  Beach was a man who invested all his actions with something of the impressiveness of a high priest conducting an intricate service at some romantic altar. It is not easy to be impressive when you are carrying an airgun in one hand and a silver salver with a box of ammunition on it in the other, but Beach managed it. Many butlers in such a position would have looked like sportsmen setting out for a day with the birds, but Beach still looked like a high priest. He advanced to the table at Lord Emsworth's side and laid his cargo upon it as if the gun and the box of ammunition had been a smoked offering and his lordship a tribal god.

  Lord Emsworth eyed his faithful servitor sourly. His manner was that of a tribal god who considers the smoked offering not up to sample.

  'What the devil's all this?'

  'It is an airgun, m'lord.'

  'I can see that, dash it. What are you bringing it here for?'

  'Her ladyship instructed me to convey it to your lordship -1 gathered for safe keeping, m'lord. The weapon was until recently the property of Master George.'

  'Why the dooce are they taking his airgun away from the poor boy?' demanded Lord Emsworth hotly. Ever since the lad had called Rupert Baxter a blister he had been feeling a strong affection for his grandson.

  'Her ladyship did not confide in me on that point, m'lord. I was merely instructed to convey the weapon to your lordship.'

  At this moment, Lady Constance came sailing in to throw light on the mystery.

  'Ah, I see Beach has brought it to you. I want you to lock that gun up somewhere, Clarence. George is not to be allowed to have it any more.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because he is not to be trusted with it. Do you know what happened? He shot Mr Baxter!’

  'What!'

  'Yes. Out on the drive just now. I noticed that the boy's manner was sullen when I introduced him to Mr Baxter, and said that he was going to be his tutor. He disappeared into the shrubbery, and just now, as Mr Baxter was standing on the drive, George shot him from behind a bush.'

  'Good!' cried Lord Emsworth, then prudently added the word 'gracious'.

  There was a pause. Lord Emsworth took up the gun and handled it curiously.

  'Bang!' he said, pointing it at a bust of Aristotle which stood on a bracket by the book-shelves.

  'Please don't wave the thing about like that, Clarence. It may be loaded.'

  'Not if George has just shot Baxter with it. No,' said Lord Emsworth, pulling the trigger, 'it's not loaded.' He mused awhile. An odd, nostalgic feeling was creeping over him. Far’ off memories of his boyhood had begun to stir within him. 'Bless my soul,' he said. ‘I haven't had one of these things in my hand since I was a child. Did you ever have one of these things, Beach?'

  'Yes, m'lord, when a small lad.'

  'Bless my soul, I remember my sister Julia borrowing mine to shoot her governess. You remember Julia shooting the governness, Connie?'

  'Don't be absurd, Clarence.'

  'It's not absurd. She did shoot her. Fortunately women wore bustles in those days. Beach, don't you remember my sister Julia shooting the governess?'

  'The incident would, no doubt, have occurred before my arrival at the castle, m'lord.'

  'That will do, Beach,' said Lady Constance. 'I do wish, Clarence,' she continued as the door closed, 'that you would not say that sort of thing in front of Beach.'

  'Julia did shoot the governess.'

  'If she did, there is no need to make your butler a confidant'

  'Now, what was that governess's name? I have an idea it began with - '

  'Never mind what her name was or what it began with. Tell me about Jane. I saw her coming out of the library. Had you been speaking to her?'

  'Yes. Oh, yes. I spoke to her.'

  'I hope you were firm.'

  'Oh, very firm. I said "Jane ..." But listen, Connie, damn it, aren't we being a little hard on the girl? One doesn't want to ruin her whole life's happiness, dash it.'

  ‘I knew she would get round you. But you are not to give way an inch.’

  'But this fellow seems to be a most suitable fellow. One of the Abercrombies and all that. Did well in the Crusades.’

  ‘I am not going to have my niece throwing herself away on a man without a penny.'

  'She isn't going to marry Roegate, you know. Nothing will induce her. She said she wouldn't mar
ry Roegate if she were the only girl in the world and he was the only boy.'

  ‘I don't care what she said. And I don't want to discuss the matter any longer. I am now going to send George in, for you to give him a good talking-to.'

  'I haven't time.'

  'You have time.'

  'I haven't. I'm going to look at my flowers’

  ‘You are not. You are going to talk to George. I want you to make him see quite clearlv what a wicked thing he has done. Mr Baxter was furious.'

  It all comes back to me,' cried Lord Emsworth, 'Mapletonl'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Her name was Mapleton. Julia's governess.'

  'Do stop about Julia's governess. Will you talk to George?'

  'Oh, all right, all right.'

  'Good. I'll go and send him to you.'

  And presently George entered. For a-boy who had just Stained the escutcheon of a proud family by shooting tutors with airguns, he seemed remarkably cheerful. His manner was that of one getting together with an old crony for a cosy chat

  'Hullo, grandpapa,' he said breezily.