Service With a Smile Page 5

  ‘I always predicted that he would be. I never actually saw him talking into three telephones at the same time, for he had not yet reached those heights, but it was obvious that the day would come when he would be able to do it without difficulty.’

  ‘He was over here not long ago. He left Myra with me. He wanted her to have a London season.’

  ‘Just the kindly sort of thing he would do. Did she enjoy it?’

  Lady Constance frowned.

  ‘I was unfortunately obliged to take her away from London after we had been there a few weeks. I found that she had become involved with a quite impossible young man.’

  There was a shocked horror in Lord Ickenham’s ‘Tut-tut!’

  ‘She insisted that they were engaged. Absurd, of course.’

  ‘Why absurd?’

  ‘He is a curate.’

  ‘I have known some quite respectable curates.’

  ‘Have you ever known one who had any money?’

  ‘Well, no. They don’t often have much, do they? I suppose a curate who was quick with his fingers would make a certain amount out of the Sunday offertory bag, but nothing more than a small, steady income. Did Myra blow her top?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Is she emotionally disturbed at being parted from the man of her choice?’

  ‘She seems depressed.’

  ‘What she needs is young society. How extremely fortunate that I was able to bring my friend Meriwether with me.’

  Lady Constance started. She had momentarily forgotten his friend Meriwether.

  ‘Emsworth took him off to look at the Empress, feeling that it would have a tonic effect after the long railway journey. You’ll like Meriwether.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Lady Constance, who considered this point a very moot one. She was strongly of the opinion that any associate of Frederick, fifth Earl of Ickenham, would be as unfit for human consumption as that blot on the peerage himself. The slight flicker of friendliness resulting from the discovery that he had at one time been on cordial terms with the man who meant so much to her had died away, and only the memory of his last visit to the castle remained. She wished she did not remember that visit so clearly. Like quite a number of those whose paths Lord Ickenham had crossed, she wanted to forget the past. Pongo Twistleton would have understood how she felt.

  ‘You have known Mr Meriwether a long time?’ she said.

  ‘From boyhood. His boyhood, of course, not mine.’

  ‘He comes from Brazil, I hear.’

  ‘Yes, like Charley’s Aunt. But —’ Here Lord Ickenham’s voice took on a grave note, ‘— on no account mention Brazil to him if you don’t mind. It was the scene of the great tragedy of his life. His young wife fell into the Amazon and was eaten by an alligator.’

  ‘How dreadful!’

  ‘For her, yes, though not of course for the alligator. I thought I had better give you this word of warning. Pass it along, will you? Oh, hullo, Dunstable.’

  The Duke had lumbered on to the terrace and was peering at him in his popeyed way.

  ‘Hullo, Ickenham. You here again?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’ve aged.’

  ‘Not spiritually. My heart is still the heart of a little child.’

  ‘Pass what along?’

  ‘Ah, you overheard what I was saying? I was speaking of my friend Meriwether, whom Lady Constance very kindly invited here with me.’

  It would be too much, perhaps, to say that Lady Constance snorted at this explanation of Bill’s presence in the home, but she unquestionably sniffed. She said nothing, and ate a cucumber sandwich in rather a marked manner. She was thinking that she would have more to say to her brother Clarence on this subject when she got him alone.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I was urging Lady Constance not to speak to him of Brazil. Will you remember this?’

  ‘What would I want to speak to him of Brazil for?’

  ‘You might on learning that that was where he had spent much of his life. And if you did, a far-away look would come into his eyes and he would grunt with pain. His young wife fell into the Amazon.’

  ‘Potty thing to do.’

  ‘And was eaten by an alligator.’

  ‘Well, what else did the silly ass expect would happen? Connie,’ said the Duke, dismissing a topic that had failed from the start to grip him. ‘Stop stuffing yourself with food and come along. Young George wants to take some pictures of us with his camera. He’s out on the lawn with Archibald. You met my nephew, Archibald?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘I am looking forward eagerly to making his acquaintance.’

  ‘You’re what?’ said the Duke incredulously.

  ‘Any nephew of yours.’

  ‘Oh I see what you mean. But you can’t go by that. He’s not like me. He’s potty.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Got less brain than Connie here, and hasn’t the excuse for pottiness that she has, because he’s not a woman. Connie’s hoping he’ll marry the Stick-in-the-Mud girl, though why any girl would want to tie herself up with a poop like that, is more than I can imagine. He’s an artist. Draws pictures. And you know what artists are. Where is the Tiddlypush girl, Connie? George wants her in the picture.’

  ‘She went down to the lake.’

  ‘Well, if she thinks I’m going there to fetch her, she’s mistaken,’ said the Duke gallantly. ‘George’ll have to do without her.’

  3

  On a knoll overlooking the lake there stood a little sort of imitation Greek temple, erected by Lord Emsworth’s grandfather in the days when landowners went in for little sort of imitation Greek temples in their grounds. In front of it there was a marble bench, and on this bench Myra Schoonmaker was sitting, gazing with what are called unseeing eyes at the Church Lads bobbing about in the water below. She was not in the gayest of spirits. Her brow, indeed, was as furrowed and her lips as drawn as they had been three days earlier when she had accompanied Lord Emsworth to the Empress’s sty.

  A footstep on the marble floor brought her out of her reverie with a jerk. She turned and saw a tall, distinguished-looking man with grey hair and a jaunty moustache, who smiled at her affectionately.

  ‘Hullo there, young Myra,’ he said.

  He spoke as if they were old friends, but she had no recollection of ever having seen him before.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said. The question seemed abrupt and she wished she had thought of something more polished.

  A reproachful look came into his eyes.

  ‘You usedn’t to say that when I soaped your back. “Nobody soaps like you, Uncle Fred,” you used to say, and you were right. I had the knack.’

  The years fell away from Myra, and she was a child in her bath again.

  ‘Well!’ she said, squeaking in her emotion.

  ‘I see you remember.’

  ‘Uncle Fred! Fancy meeting you again like this after all these years. Though I suppose I ought to call you Mr. Twistleton.’

  ‘You would be making a serious social gaffe, if you did. I’ve come a long way since we last saw each other. By pluck and industry I’ve worked my way up the ladder, step by step, to dizzy heights. You may have heard that a Lord Ickenham was expected at the Castle today. I am the Lord Ickenham about whom there has been so much talk. And not one of your humble Barons or Viscounts, mind you, but a belted Earl, with papers to prove it.’

  ‘Like Lord Emsworth?’

  ‘Yes, only brighter.’

  ‘I remember now Father saying something about your haying become a big wheel.’

  ‘He in no way overstated it. How is he?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Full of beans?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘More than you are, my child. I was watching you sitting there, and you reminded me of Rodin’s Penseur. Were you thinking of Bill Bailey?’

  Myra started.

  ‘You don’t —?’

  �
�Know Bill Bailey? Certainly I do. He’s a friend of my nephew Pongo’s and to my mind as fine a curate as ever preached a sermon.’

  The animation which had come into the girl’s face at this reunion with one of whom she had such pleasant memories died away to be replaced by a cold haughtiness like that of a princess reluctantly compelled to give her attention to the dregs of the underworld.

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion, I suppose,’ she said stiffly. ‘I think he’s a rat.’

  It seemed to Lord Ickenham that he could not have heard correctly. Young lovers, he knew were accustomed to bestow on each other a variety of pet names, but he had never understood ‘rat’ to be one of them.

  ‘A rat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’

  ‘Because of what he did.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Or didn’t do, rather.’

  ‘You speak in riddles. Couldn’t you make it clearer?’

  ‘I’ll make it clearer, all right. He stood me up.’

  ‘I still don’t get the gist.’

  ‘Very well, then, if you want the whole story. I phoned him that I was coming to London to marry him, and he didn’t show up at the registry office.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Had cold feet, I suppose. I ought to have guessed from the way he said “Oh, rather”, when I asked him if he wasn’t pleased. I waited at the place for hours, but he never appeared. And he told me he loved me!’

  It was not often that Lord Ickenham was bewildered, but he found himself now unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.

  ‘He never appeared? Are we talking of the same man? The one I mean is an up-and-coming young cleric named Bill Bailey, in whose company I passed fully three-quarters of an hour yesterday at the registry office. I was to have been one of his witnesses, lending a tone to the thing.’

  Myra stared.

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘The charge has sometimes been brought against me, but there’s nothing in it. Just exuberant. Why do you ask?’

  ‘He can’t have been at the registry office. I’d have seen him.’

  ‘He’s hard to miss, I agree. Catches the eye, as you might say. But I assure you —’At the registry office in Wilton Street?’

  ‘Say that again.

  ‘Say what again?’

  ‘Wilton Street.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to test a theory that has just occurred to me. I think I have the solution of this mystery that has been perplexing us. Someone, especially if a good deal agitated hearing somebody say “Wilton” over the telephone, could easily mistake it for “Milton”. Some trick of the acoustics. It was at the Milton Street registry office that Bill, my nephew Pongo and I kept our vigil. We all missed you.’

  The colour drained from Myra Schoonmaker’s face. Her eyes, as they stared into Lord Ickenham’s, had become almost as prominent as the Duke’s.

  ‘You don’t mean that?’

  ‘I do, indeed. There were we, waiting at the church—’

  ‘Oh, golly, what an escape I’ve had!’

  Lord Ickenham could not subscribe to this view.

  ‘Now there I disagree with you. My acquaintance with Bill Bailey has been brief, but as I told you, it has left me with a distinctly favourable impression of him. A sterling soul he seemed to me. I feel the spiritual needs of Bottleton East are safe in the hands of a curate like that. Don’t tell me you’ve weakened on him?’

  ‘Of course I’ve not weakened on him.’

  ‘Then why do you feel that you have had an escape?’

  ‘Because I came back here so mad with him for standing me up, as I thought, that when Archie Gilpin proposed to me I very nearly accepted him.’

  Lord Ickenham looked grave. These artists, he was thinking, work fast.

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, don’t. It would spoil Bill’s visit. And I want him to enjoy himself at Blandings Castle. But I didn’t tell you about that, did I? It must have slipped my mind. I’ve brought Bill here with me. Incognito, of course. I thought you might like to see him. I always strive, when I can, to spread sweetness and light. There have been several complaints about it.’

  Chapter Four

  1

  It was the practice of Lord Ickenham, when visiting a country house to look about him, before doing anything else, for a hammock to which he could withdraw after breakfast and lie thinking deep thoughts. Though, like Abou ben Adhem a man who loved his fellow men, he made it an invariable rule to avoid them after the morning meal with an iron firmness, for at that delectable hour he wished to be alone to meditate. Whoever wanted to enjoy the sparkle of his conversation had to wait till lunch, when it would be available to all.

  Such a hammock he had found on the lawn of Blandings Castle, and on the morning after his arrival he was reclining in it at peace with all the world. The day was warm and sunny. A breeze blew gently from the west. Birds chirped, bees buzzed, insects droned as they went about the various businesses that engage the attention of insects in the rural districts. In the stable yard, out of view behind a shrubbery, somebody — possibly Voules the chauffeur — was playing the harmonica. And from a window in the house, softened by distance, there sounded faintly the tap-tap-tap of a typewriter, showing that Lavender Briggs, that slave of duty, was at work on some secretarial task and earning the weekly envelope. Soothed and relaxed, Lord Ickenham fell into a reverie.

  He had plenty to occupy his mind. As a man who specialized in spreading sweetness and light, he was often confronted with problems difficult of solution, but he had seldom found them so numerous. As he mused on Lady Constance, on Lavender Briggs, on the Duke of Dunstable and on the Church Lads, he could see, as he had told Pongo, that his hands would be full and his ingenuity strained to the uttermost.

  He was glad, this being so, that he had not got to worry about Bill Bailey, who had relieved whatever apprehensions he may have had by fitting well into the little Blandings circle. True, Lady Constance had greeted him with a touch of frost in her manner, but that was to be expected. The others, he had been happy to see, had made him welcome, particularly Lord Emsworth, to whom he appeared to have said just the right things about the Empress during yesterday evening’s visit to her residence. Lord Emsworth’s approval did not, of course, carry much weight at Blandings Castle, but it was something.

  It was as he lay meditating on Lord Emsworth that he observed him crossing the lawn and sat up with a start of surprise. What had astonished him was not the other’s presence there, for the proprietor of a country house has of course a perfect right to cross lawns on his own premises, but the fact that he was wet. Indeed, the word ‘wet’ was barely adequate. He was soaked from head to foot and playing like a Versailles fountain.

  This puzzled Lord Ickenham. He was aware that his host sometimes took a dip in the lake, but he had not known that he did it immediately after breakfast with all his clothes on, and abandoning his usual policy of allowing nothing to get him out of his hammock till the hour of the midday cocktail, he started in pursuit.

  Lord Emsworth was cutting out a good pace, so good that he remained out of earshot, and he had disappeared into the house before Lord Ickenham reached it. The latter, shrewdly reasoning that a wet man would make for his bedroom, followed him there. He found him in the nude, drying himself with a bath towel, and immediately put the question which would have occurred to anyone in his place.

  ‘My dear fellow, what happened? Did you fall into the lake?’

  Lord Emsworth lowered the towel and reached for a patched shirt.

  ‘Eh? Oh, hullo, Ickenham. Did you say you had fallen into the lake?’

  ‘I asked if you had.’

  ‘I? Oh, no.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that was merely perspiration you were bathed in when I saw you on the lawn?’

  ‘Eh? No, I perspire very little. But I did not fall into the lake.
I dived in.’

  ‘With your clothes on?’

  ‘Yes, I had my clothes on.’

  ‘Any particular reason for diving? Or did it just seem a good idea at the time?’

  ‘I had lost my glasses.’

  ‘And you thought they might be in the lake?’

  Lord Emsworth appeared to realize that he had not made himself altogether clear. For some moments he busied himself with a pair of trousers. Having succeeded in draping his long legs in these, he explained.

  ‘No, it was not that. But when I am without my glasses, I find a difficulty in seeing properly. And I had no reason to suppose that the boy was not accurate in his statement.’

  ‘What boy was that?’

  ‘One of the Church Lads. I spoke to you about them, if you remember.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I wish somebody would mend my socks,’ said Lord Emsworth, deviating for a moment from the main theme. ‘Look at those holes. What were we talking about?’

  ‘This statement-making Church Lad.’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, quite. Well, the whole thing was very peculiar. I had gone down to the lake with the idea of asking the boys if they could possibly make a little less noise, and suddenly one of them came running up to me with the most extraordinary remark. He said, “Oh, sir, please save Willie! “‘

  ‘Odd way of starting a conversation, certainly.’

  ‘He was pointing at an object in the water, and putting two and two together I came to the conclusion that one of his comrades must have fallen into the lake and was drowning. So I dived in.’

  Lord Ickenham was impressed.

  ‘Very decent of you. Many men who had suffered so much at the hands of the little blisters would just have stood on the bank and sneered. Was the boy grateful?’

  ‘I can’t find my shoes. Oh yes, here they are. What did you say?’

  ‘Did the boy thank you brokenly?’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘The one whose life you saved.’

  ‘Oh, I was going to explain that. It wasn’t a boy. It turned out to be a floating log. I swam to it, shouting to it to keep cool, and was very much annoyed to find that my efforts had been for nothing. And do you know what I think, Ickenham? I strongly suspect that it was not a genuine mistake on the boy’s part. I am convinced that he was perfectly well aware that the object in the water was not one of his playmates and that he had deliberately deceived me. Oh yes, I feel sure of it, and I’ll tell you why. When I came out, he had been joined by several other boys, and they were laughing.’